2 sections of road in Bohemia 'deleted' from Islip Town map

Two sections of road have been "deleted" from the official Islip Town map.

The town board voted to "amend the official map of the Town of Islip by deleting Arctic Avenue and Harding Street in Bohemia," according to the June 19 resolution.

The resolution essentially takes small sections of those roads off the town's roll of streets to maintain and makes them part of the surrounding private properties, town officials said. 

While it is not uncommon for towns to abandon roads, employees of the Suffolk County Real Property Tax Service Agency have "never seen a road just get deleted," said Jonathan Price, assistant to the agency's director. 

"Land doesn't disappear," he said. "It's just the way they worded it that's uncommon."

The road abandonment was requested by the owners of the surrounding properties, who are seeking to consolidate their lots to develop a self-storage facility, town planner Chris D’Antonio said.

The section of Harding Avenue, between Lakeland Avenue and Arctic Avenue, was a “paper street,” meaning it was formally the town’s responsibility but was not opened as a roadway, D’Antonio said. The unpaved section has been used as an entrance to the South Bay Seafood fish market, not as a public road, for years.

The section of Arctic Avenue that is perpendicular to Harding and ends in a chain-link fence appears to never have been formally accepted by the town as its responsibility, D'Antonio said. It is “puzzling” because the town likely maintained it anyway, judging by the fact it is paved, he said.

While the town map lists the street as “Arctic,” the street signs spell it "Artic."

“This road is a bit of an anomaly,” D’Antonio said. “It has a bit of quirkiness to it.”

Under the self-storage plan submitted by Lake Avenue Self Storage last year, the four surrounding parcels that front these street sections would be consolidated and existing buildings would be demolished, D'Antonio said. The plan would not require a zone change.

Three surrounding parcels, which include the fish market, are owned by Robert Sudano Jr. A fourth parcel containing a home is owned by Gerard Scollan.

Sudano and Scollan did not respond to requests for comment.

An adjacent section of Arctic was abandoned a few years ago as the neighboring Restaurant Depot expanded, D’Antonio said. That section still appears on Google Maps even though it is now part of a parking lot.

The abandonment of roads, which is “rare” in the town, does not require a public hearing but must be approved by the town assessor’s office, attorney, department of public works and planning department, D’Antonio said.

Town officials have the authority to abandon and discontinue streets if they are less than 1,000 feet, determined to be unnecessary for highway purposes and if the surrounding property owners requested the change, according to state highway law.

Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified one of the buildings to be demolished.