Town is Psyched Out
Michael White, Daily News Writer
New York Daily News
Irked by Kings Park hosp site development
One boy at the rally suggested a park.
Another thought a "kids center" would be nice on the 370-acre Kings Park Psychiatric Center property.
"'Cuz there's really nowhere else to go," said 10-year-old Tristan Bryan, a fifth-grader at R.J.O. Intermediate School in Kings Park.
But the 150 people who gathered in Kings Park to protest the state's pending sale of the property agreed on one thing: "Kings Park deserves better."
And so they chanted that mantra as they walked along Route 25-A and onto the property Friday.
"For a 100 years we put up with the psychiatric center here," said Robert Trotta, a Suffolk County police officer who organized the rally. "There were some benefits, but the patients roamed around our town.
"The state should owe us something."
The state is expected to sell the sprawling acreage along Long Island Sound for $6.5 million to a private developer, Arker Cos., which is said to want to build 1,800 townhouses and condos on the site.
Residents in Kings Park fear that the cost of cleaning up the property will be so high that the Woodmere-based company will have to pack in more homes to turn a profit.
But Gary Lewis, a spokesman for Arker and its partner company, Cherokee Northeast, said the Town of Smithtown would never accept such development.
"There is no way we would ever propose something that would be onerous to Kings Park, and that would be dead on arrival at the Smithtown Town Hall," he said.
Lewis said that even if Arker wanted to build more homes than it proposed, the town would never go for it, adding "But it's not our intent to unduly burden the property."
Most at the rally directed their anger at the state.
"The state polluted this land in the heart of our town, they should clean it up," said Linda Henninger, president of a local civic association. "It could be $30 million, it could be $100 million. The state never tried to find out what it is - they just put it up for bid."
Ironically, Kings Park grew up around the hospital in the woods, which was founded in the 19th century. The hamlet was in effect named after the parklike facility where Kings County, not yet part of New York City, sent its psychiatric patients.
One boy at the rally suggested a park.
Another thought a "kids center" would be nice on the 370-acre Kings Park Psychiatric Center property.
"'Cuz there's really nowhere else to go," said 10-year-old Tristan Bryan, a fifth-grader at R.J.O. Intermediate School in Kings Park.
But the 150 people who gathered in Kings Park to protest the state's pending sale of the property agreed on one thing: "Kings Park deserves better."
And so they chanted that mantra as they walked along Route 25-A and onto the property Friday.
"For a 100 years we put up with the psychiatric center here," said Robert Trotta, a Suffolk County police officer who organized the rally. "There were some benefits, but the patients roamed around our town.
"The state should owe us something."
The state is expected to sell the sprawling acreage along Long Island Sound for $6.5 million to a private developer, Arker Cos., which is said to want to build 1,800 townhouses and condos on the site.
Residents in Kings Park fear that the cost of cleaning up the property will be so high that the Woodmere-based company will have to pack in more homes to turn a profit.
But Gary Lewis, a spokesman for Arker and its partner company, Cherokee Northeast, said the Town of Smithtown would never accept such development.
"There is no way we would ever propose something that would be onerous to Kings Park, and that would be dead on arrival at the Smithtown Town Hall," he said.
Lewis said that even if Arker wanted to build more homes than it proposed, the town would never go for it, adding "But it's not our intent to unduly burden the property."
Most at the rally directed their anger at the state.
"The state polluted this land in the heart of our town, they should clean it up," said Linda Henninger, president of a local civic association. "It could be $30 million, it could be $100 million. The state never tried to find out what it is - they just put it up for bid."
Ironically, Kings Park grew up around the hospital in the woods, which was founded in the 19th century. The hamlet was in effect named after the parklike facility where Kings County, not yet part of New York City, sent its psychiatric patients.
This article was
written by Michael White, Daily News Writer
and published by New York Daily News
on Monday, November 14