Oyster Bay Cove should welcome Cold Spring Harbor Lab fellows

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is one of the world's most prestigious and consequential centers for scientific research, where work is done that could cure cancers and further its significant advances in genomics, biology and neuroscience.

That work begins with the lab's youngest, most promising scientists — its postdoctoral fellows, who arrive after years of study at the world's top universities, ready to work long hours on the research, experimentation and testing that could yield the next big discovery. But like so many on Long Island, these fellows have had a difficult time finding suitable housing while they work here.

The lab found a place for 28 of those researchers — a historic home and its carriage house on nearly 12 acres of land on Sandy Hill Road in the Village of Oyster Bay Cove, an exclusive community with about 2,200 residents.

But the laboratory's proposal has drawn the ire of a small but vocal group of residents who have expressed typical concerns, like traffic, and some atypical worries — like whether they'll be able to ride their horses down Sandy Hill Road. They say their property values will fall and their "tranquility" will be lost. Most significantly, those residents, part of a group called Save Oyster Bay Cove, have said the young workers will change the character of their neighborhood.

"They're infringing on my community. This is the wrong community for them," resident Evelyn Ain told the editorial board in an interview. "Why are they disrupting my community?"

Actually, Oyster Bay Cove is the right community for these scientists. Until 2023, the property identified by the lab housed a group of high school girls with special needs. It has been vacant since then. Laboratory officials said they plan to retain the look and feel of the property. And contrary to residents' claims of school overcrowding, none of the fellows will have children, lab officials said. 

None of that assuages the objecting residents. But village Mayor Charles Goulding said they are not representative of the village as a whole, noting he's received positive feedback from many others. That's promising. Lab officials are holding an information session Saturday at the property for neighbors to take a tour and ask questions. Perhaps that will ease concerns for more residents.

If no valid objections are made, the village zoning board should issue the necessary approvals. That could clear the way for the postdoctoral fellows to take up residency in the next year or two, taking shuttle vans between their dormitory-style homes and their workplace. Likely, they will quickly become part of the fabric of the tiny village. Perhaps they'll even stay on Long Island to continue their research and even be celebrated for groundbreaking work on autism or Alzheimer's disease.

Villagers should welcome them to the neighborhood — rather than try to turn them away.