Huntington OKs special-use permit for long-awaited Fort Salonga senior housing project 

A seven-year-old application to transform a private golf club in Fort Salonga into a senior housing community has been approved and moves the project one step closer to getting shovels in the ground.

The Huntington Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-3 at its Thursday meeting to issue a special-use permit for the Preserve at Indian Hills.

The permit would allow Hauppauge-based developer Jim Tsunis to build 74 units of housing with a combined clubhouse and fitness center on the grounds of the Indian Hills Country Club on Breeze Hill Road. He said he has an option to build 12 additional housing units after getting planning board permission.

“I’m happy to be moving forward,” Tsunis told Newsday Friday. “After all of the environmental work and reports we’ve done with the property, I’m fully satisfied that the community will be built in accordance with all regulations.”

But some residents believe the vote does not hold up under town code.

John Hayes, president of the Fort Salonga Property Owners Association, said town code states that an alternate board member who was not a sitting member at the original public hearing cannot vote to break a tie.

The original public hearing was on Jan. 13. Alternate member James Basso was appointed to the zoning appeals board on Feb. 1 and voted in favor of the special-use permit. 

Town code says any alternate must visit a site and that a new public hearing must be set to allow the applicant or the public the opportunity to offer comments to the board member who will cast the deciding vote.

“So it is clear that, by law, the ZBA chair should invalidate last night's vote and schedule a new public hearing,” Hayes told Newsday on Friday.

Zoning Board of Appeals attorney John Bennett said the section of town code Hayes references is not applicable to the situation and no further public hearing is required.

“This Code section only requires an additional public hearing when there is a tie vote or when there is a failure to obtain a majority when less than seven members have voted," he said in an email. "Neither predicate occurred herein.”

The project was proposed in 2016 as a development with 98 residences with a clubhouse-fitness center but has faced opposition from some area residents who cited concern for the environment and changes the project would bring to their quality of life.

The golf club is in close proximity to the Crab Meadow wetlands, Fresh Pond and Long Island Sound.

In May 2021 the Huntington Planning Board gave the project preliminary subdivision approval.

The application moves back to the planning board, which will issue a determination on the final subdivision approval, town officials said.