Advocates for seniors weigh in on Smithtown's proposed ban on assisted living facilities in residential areas 

A proposed ban on new assisted living and nursing facilities in Smithtown’s residential neighborhoods has drawn a cautious response from some eldercare professionals and opposition from at least one advocate for seniors.

Smithtown permits the facilities in most residential, business and industrial districts under a zoning process called a special exception. The bill, introduced at an April 4 public hearing but not yet scheduled for a town board vote, would end use of the special exception for care facilities in most residential districts, though town officials have said it could be used in the future in a multifamily district that may be established along portions of Route 111 and Jericho Turnpike.

Tracey Alvino, director of the advocacy group Voices for Seniors, said at the public hearing that the proposed bill would push assisted living facilities to the town’s outskirts and could force seniors into nursing homes by limiting other housing options.

She described recent opposition to a proposal to build an assisted living facility at the former Bull Run Farm in St. James as overblown.

The special exception process came under public scrutiny recently when that proposal met nearly unanimous opposition from neighbors.

Allyson Murray, the town's environmental planner, said this week that the Bull Run application had not been withdrawn. A lawyer for the developer couldn't be reached for comment. 

“We’re acting like there’s a prison going up in a residential area,” Alvino said of the Bull Run proposal. “It would have an imperceptible effect on the life of the community and would generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes.” 

Gregg Balbera, president and owner of Right At Home, a Smithtown-based agency offering in-home care to older and disabled adults, said in a phone interview he would support an approach where “each location is reviewed on its own merits" in terms of placement of facilities for the elderly. 

Care facilities should go “in areas where it makes sense for the seniors and for the neighborhood,” Balbera said, adding officials and developers should be mindful of overbuilding.

Balbera said concerns about traffic increases often are overestimated, and negatives should be weighed against positives like tax revenue and the chance to let seniors who spent their lives on Long Island stay here in retirement.  

Jennifer Devine, a geriatric social worker for Caring People, which provides home care and elder care planning in Smithtown and elsewhere on Long Island, said in a phone interview she hasn't taken a position on the bill. 

But she added older people should have a variety of options when it comes to living arrangements "so they can live with the respect and dignity they deserve.” 

More than 18% of Smithtown’s residents are 65 or older, and the population skews older than in Suffolk County and New York State overall. Four assisted living facilities built in recent years added 486 beds; previously, the town had two facilities with 144 beds. 

Several of Smithtown’s assisted living facilities were built in residential districts under special exception rules for care facilities that set minimum standards for acreage, frontage and setback.

But the town’s 2020 draft comprehensive plan recommended prohibiting the facilities in most residential districts because their size “can have a significant impact on surrounding neighborhoods.”

Joseph Bollhofer, an attorney and member of the St. James-Head of the Harbor Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, said at the recent public hearing the proposed legislation was needed to protect what he called the “last rural corridor of the town.”  

Smithtown Supervisor Edward Wehrheim and town planners have said the bill would leave substantial areas of the town where care facilities could be built, and town board members also would consider rezoning some sites now zoned residential to permit new assisted living construction.