The Smithtown Town Board convened on Thursday, September 18, 2025, at 2:00 PM in the Victor T. Liss Board Room. All board members were present: Supervisor Edward R. Wehrheim, Councilman Thomas J. McCarthy, Councilwoman Lynne C. Nowick, Councilwoman Lisa M. Inzerillo, and Councilman Thomas Lohmann Sr. The meeting covered a site plan presentation for the Guide Dog Foundation, approval of public hearings, consent agenda items, various resolutions, personnel actions, and public comments. All votes were unanimous.
We're ready, men. All right. All right, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our September 18th meeting. Please stand and join us with the pledge. I pledge allegiance. One condition on the die. Roll call. Supervisor Well. Here, Councilman McCartney. Councilwoman Lowick. Councilwoman. Yeah. Councilman Lowman. Yeah. Okay, we will begin. Uh we have one site plan today. Mr. Trotter, you're up. Good afternoon, supervisor, members of the town board. I'm Liam Shadow with the planning department, and I have one site plan to present this afternoon to the board acting as the board of site plan review. The applicant is the guide dog foundation. The subject site is located on the north side of Middle Country Road between Lindner Place and 50 Acre Road in Smithtown. And the proposals for the demolition of a 13,000 square foot animal boarding puppy development facility and the construction of a new 31,950 square foot one-story animal boarding puppy development facility with associated site work. This is an aerial of the subject site. So I guess you can see this is Middle Country Road right here. A few years ago, the Guide Dog Foundation purchased this repair garage. They demolished it a couple of years ago, and we'll be utilizing this corner for the new development, the puppy development center. They plan on building the new facility, and then after the building, the construction is complete, they'll you know move up all the pubbies and equipment and whatever into the new building and then demolish the existing facility. This is the proposed site plan. Uh so you can see this is the footprint of the proposed building. They'll also be doing a uh redevelopment of the parking lot on the north side of the site. This will be like a grass turf overflow parking area. And the uh the corner where the building stands now, that'll just be topsoil seated and be land bank parking. They are uh the applicant is proposing to maintain a small uh existing parking area on the uh off middle country road. They'll keep that just for extra parking for access to the rear of the facility. This is the proposed elevations of the building. They'll use a composite wood siding and a two-tone uh fiber board cement siding as well. And this proposal went to the board for a zone change. Uh the zoning line was it used to be 200 feet off Middle Country Road, uh, and earlier this year the town board approved his own change to relocate the zoning line to 300 feet, and that way the the new building will be entirely within the WSI zoning district. The proposal also went to the Board of Uh Zoning Appeals for a special exception for a boarding uh animal boarding facility, uh, and also received a number of area variance approvals. And the applicant has agreed to 11 conditions of site plan approval. The first condition is that the applicant obtain applicable permits from the town and building department. The second condition is the applicant install a tree preservation fence around all trees to be preserved on site. Third condition is the applicant shall obtain a highway work permit from the town highway department for improvements along 50 acre road and linear place. Fourth condition is that the applicant obtain a highway work permit from the New York State Department of Transportation for improvements along Middle Country Road. Fifth condition is the applicant shall obtain a New York Speedies general permit for stormwater discharges from construction activity. The sixth condition is the applicant shall provide details of the proposed screen wall enclosing the generator. The seventh condition is that the applicant shall obtain a necessary front yard setback variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals. So uh when the proposal first went to the Board of Zoning Appeals, the setback variance was taken from the setback variants from 50 acre road was taken from the building.