Developer To Host Presentation On Proposed Apartments At Touro

BAY SHORE, NY - The company looking to construct a 495-apartment complex at the Touro College campus will be holding a presentation during the Greater Bay Shore Chamber of Commerce meeting on Tuesday night.

Earlier this month the Long Island-based real estate developer, Tritec, announced plans to construct a $195 million complex on a portion of the campus on Union Boulevard and Fourth Avenue.

"Touro College has completed a deal with Tritec to purchase the Touro Bay Shore Campus which we will integrate into our Central Islip campus with the addition of one new building," Jeffrey Rosengarten, Senior Vice President of Operations at Touro, said in a statement. "Both Touro and TRITEC are awaiting town approval on details of construction at both affected sites."

The project was up for discussion at a recent town board meeting and met with disapproval from some of the local residents.

Even the Bay Shore School District expressed their concerns regarding the project. In a letter sent out by Superintendent Joseph Bond, the district encouraged residents to contact town officials to to express their opposition.

"The Bay Shore School District stands adamantly opposed to the proposed development," Bond writes in the letter. "The Board of Education and I have carefully reviewed the proposal submitted by Tritec to the Town of Islip IDA. Behind their colorful language and rosy descriptions of how their project will benefit the community is a potential Trojan Horse. As the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. The district has grave concerns about how the project will impact our students given the reality of the legislative restraints imposed on our tax levy and tax relief being sought by the developer. There is no avenue to provide relief should the developer's subjective estimate of 12 students be as understated as our experience leads us to believe it will be. There is no guarantee that the nearly 500 proposed apartments will be rented by empty-nesters and childless millennials as the application predicts. The tax cap that is currently in place effectively renders any taxes paid by the developer moot. This leaves the district with the potential of having to absorb an unlimited number of students at an unknown additional cost with no mechanism available to increase our revenues. This would inevitably lead to a negative impact on the programs that make Bay Shore a great place to educate students."

The special presentation on the Touro College campus application will take place during the chamber meeting at the Bay Shore-Brightwaters Library on South Country Road.