The 1995 Brookhaven/South Haven Hamlets Study was prepared by representatives of Brookhaven and South Haven Hamlets as part of the Community Based Planning Program of the Town of Brookhaven under the auspices of Dr. Lee Koppleman, the Town’s planning consultant. While, as of this writing, the document is nearing its 20th anniversary, it continues to provide useful information on the history and demographics of the community, and as a fundamental planning document for the future.
i • Prologue
This copy is a scanned OCR version of the report. OCR scanning technology www.poloralphlaurenaustralia.biz is far from perfect. While Iit has been proof read, scanning errors may remain. OCR scanning technology has particular difficulty with 1 & l, 5 & S, O & 0, and other character similarities.
The column to the left is a page-by-table page contents. For the most part, pagination is as found in the original report, except that paragraphs split by a page break and some short pages have been here combined onto a single page.
Prologue: Fire Place, Then and Now
By the end of the year 1687, through purchases of land from the Seatalcott and Unkechogue Indians, and the consolidation of private patents granted by the English monarchy, the Town of Brookhaven had grown from a small settlement at Setauket to become the largest town on Long Island.
In those days, the population center, and the hub of social, religious and economic activity in the Town, lay at the north shore, whose bays were the ports of entry for European ships. The south shore was explored by farmers from the north seeking open spaces to raise hay and graze cattle. Attracted by large meadows of salt hay near the mouth of the Carmans River (then called the Connecticut River), these settlers also discovered abundant fishing and oystering in the Great south Hay, and learned of the opportunities for capturing whales off the south shore of Fire Island
In a remarkable book chronicling the history of the Old South Haven Church, The Church at the South, George Borthwick describes the arrival of the first English-speaking residents of the area we now call Brookhaven Village. It was then known as Fire Place – a term that was sometimes used indiscriminately to refer to the southern part of the town (and gave the barrier beach its current name). The name refers to the fires built to guide whaling boats crossing the bay at night. Back then, Old 1nlet on Fire Island was a real inlet from the Atlantic Ocean, and the route through this inlet to landing places along the shores of the Carmans (Connecticut) River was marked at night by fires built on what we now call Long Point. Among the landing points were “Squassuck’s Landing” and “Indian Landing.” The former is still the favorite landing spot for Brookhaven Villagers returning from Old Inlet, and Indian point, now a part of the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge remains a fixture of loca1 lore and a popular stop for canoeists on the Carmans River
The early activities in the south led to the formation of a well-traveled road from Setauket in the north to Fire Place. Dating from about 1665, traces of this road exist today. Originally called “Road to South,” its remnants can be found on some contemporary maps as “Old Town Road.” It passed through our hamlet along the road now known as Fireplace Neck Road, and down what is now Bay Road. For many years, this was the most heavily traveled road in the Town.
Two hundred and some years ago, as the seeds of great social and political change took root along the eastern seaboard of North America, Brookhaven Hamlet was a thriving community, and one of the focal points for the call to revolutionary action. The Old Southaven Church stood at an important crossroads in those days – with soon-to-be Revolutionary War generals William I Floyd and Nathaniel Woodhull as regular parishioners, as well as visits from Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and James Madison. The Reverend Dr. David Rose (“Priest Rose”) was minister from 1768 to 1799. Ordained at Yale Divinity School, he was a fiery leader from the pulpit. It was Priest Rose who, in the words of Rev. Borthwick “with the authority of God behind his words, stirred the minds of the men, who listened to his preaching, to action.”
The South Haven Church was established near the end of the 17th century to serve the Presbyterian community “at the South.” The old church was moved from its original site beside the Carmans River to its present location in Brookhaven Hamlet in 1960. George Borthwick’s history is an amazingly rich chronicle of the individuals and events that have defined this south shore community over the course of three centuries.
Today there is still much to remind us of that early, primeval Brookhaven. The natural wetlands and open space that originally attracted settlers to this area still characterize our community.
The preservation of the area’s open spaces, wetlands, waterways and natural resources is is a key part of this community’s vision for its future, and the highest priority among the recommendations of this Hamlet study.
Sadly, over the past decade, new fires have appeared in the night, visible to sailors navigating the waters of Fire Place – these are the gas flares that burn atop the Town landfill, the mountain of garbage that has loomed up along the one-time route of Old Town Road and signals alarm for the future of this 300-year-old community.
The centuries that have ensued since the early days of Revolutionary fervor have not dimmed the penchant for Brookhaven area residents to take the lead in far-reaching causes. In the 1960s, a few local environmentalists, including BVA member, Dennis Puleston and long-time Bellport High School science teacher Art Cooley, founded the Environmental Defense Fund and took on the massive destruction of the environment being caused by the pesticide DDT. They took the manufacturers to court, and ultimately changed the nation’s policy on environmental issues. The EDF, now one of the most powerful environmental lobbying organizations in the country, is in the headlines again. This time it is for initiating lawsuits that are challenging the conduct of waste management in the nation’s municipalities. One result has been the recent Supreme Court decision against the dumping of toxic incinerator ash in municipal landfills. Brookhaven/South Haven residents (with the support of the EDF, and other organizations) have been active in these issues at the local level. A focus of this activity has been a concerted opposition to the expansion and continued operation of the Brookhaven Town Landfill as a regional ashfill. The landfill, whose site is adjacent to the headwaters of the Beaver Dam Creek, and which lies just north of the Hamlet boundary, has had measurable and severe effects on local air and groundwater quality, and represents an approach to waste management that is widely regarded in this community as environmentally and economically unsound.
The health of our community in the long term depends critically on the implementation of sound sound environmental and waste-management policies for Brookhaven Town and for Long Island as a whole. In this document we will outline some specific waste- management practices that can be implemented in our community and beyond, to facilitate the New York State-mandated hierarchy to reduce, reuse, recycle the component’s of our waste streams. A major concern is the continued expansion of the Town landfill as a regional repository for repository toxic incinerator ash.
Hamlets Study
- i-iii Prologue
- Table of Contents
- 1 I. Introduction
- 1 a Plate 1
- 2-4 II. Overview
- 5-8 II. Overview
- 9-11 III. History
- 12 IV. Land Use
- 12 a Plate 2
- 13-14 IV. Land Use
- 15 IV. Land Use
- 15 a Plate 4
- 15 b Carman’s River
- 16 V. Land Use Issues
- 17 V. Land Use Issues
- 18 V. Land Use Issues
- 19 V. Land Use Issues
- 20 V. Land Use Issues
- 20 a Plate 5
- 21-22 VI. Other Issues
- 23-24 VI. Other Issues
- 25 VI. Other Issues
- 25 a Plate 6
- 26-27 VI Other Issues
- 28-29 VI Other Issues
- 30-31 VII Summary
- 32 VII. Recommendations
- 33 VII. Recommendations
- 34 VII. Recommendations
- 35-39 A. Questionnaire
- 40-42 B. Community Comments
- Zoning
Acronyms and Other Jargon
(This table is not found in the original study paper)
| BVA | Brookhaven Village Association |
| BZA | Board of Zoning Appeals (Town of Brookhaven) |
| CDP | Census Designated Place (Census Bureau) |
| CEA | Critical Environmental Area (Town of Brookhaven) |
| DEP | Division of Environmental Protection (Town of Brookhaven) |
| DOT | Department of Transportation (New York State, see NYSDOT) |
| EDF | Environmental Defense Fund |
| LID | Local Implementation District (in context of LWRP) |
| LILCO | Long Island Lighting Company (It's gone! Mostly replaced by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA).) |
| LIRPB | Long Island Regional Planning Board |
| LWRP | Local Waterfront Revitalization Program |
| NYSDEC | New York State Department of Environmental Conservation |
| NYSDOS | New York State Department of State |
| NYSDOT | New York State Department of Transportation |
| PDR | Purchase of Development Rights: involves the outright purchase of future development rights, generally by a governmental agency, as compared to TDR. |
| PMF | Post Morrow Foundation |
| SCDHS | Suffolk County Department of Health Services |
| SCTM | Suffolk County Tax Map |
| SWMP | Solid Waste Management Plan (probably by Town of Brookhaven) |
| TDR | Transfer of Development Rights: involves authorizing the transfer of development rights to a less sensitive and more suitable geographic area by the appropriate governmental entities. See also PDR. |
| Zoning | Zoning Designations, see Town of Brookhaven Zoning Requirements |
Squassux Landing: A Community Treasure
Centuries ago “Squassuks Landing” was something of a port of entry for the area of Long Island that was then called Fire Place. For the most recent century or so, Squassux Landing has been more a point of departure – a mooring place for working boats, ferry boats, and pleasure boats plying the Great South Bay.
Early in this century James H, Post, one of Brookhaven Hamlet’s early civic activists and benefactor, purchased the Squassux Landing property and made its shore available to local boaters. Harold Lyons of Bellport recalls that as teenagers in the mid-1920s, he and his friends had boats and kept them moored at Squassux Landing. As he puts it, “Anybody who wanted to could keep a boat there. It was run by the Village Association, but there was no fee. Later, in the thirties or forties, it cost about five dollars to keep a boat there.”
In 1945, the property was deeded to the Village Association by Mr. Post’s heirs, Jessie Wells Post, Helen Post Hubert, and Elisabeth Post Morrow. It has since been maintained and operated by the BVA as a nonprofit boat landing for the use of residents of Brookhaven Hamlet. The 13-acre site now has some 200 wooden docks along the river and on two manmade canals. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the BVA’s ownership of Squassux Landing. Over these years, the Village Association has maintained the Landing in a low-key, traditional fashion, and the site is treasured by our community as much for its natural beauty as for its access to the local waters.
The history and current use of Squassux Landing is a good example of the spirit in which this planning study has been carried out. While we work hard to preserve the physical links to our region’s past – the historic places, open spaces, and unspoiled waterways – our aim at the same time is to provide a place where families can continue to live and enjoy these unique surroundings.
The Brookhaven/South Haven Hamlet Study Committee, September, 1995
Brookhaven Village Association:
- Thomas W. Ludlam, President
- Martin Van Lith, Chair, Land Use Committee
- David Allison
- Anita Cohen
- Nicholas Delihas
- Robert Deckers
- Mike Garlin
- Ken Hansen
- Faith McCutcheon
- Marilyn McCain
- Dennis Puleston
- Karen Rowley
Post Morrow Foundation:
- Thomas Williams
South Haven Civic Association:
- Anne Meinhold
- Terry Young
- William Koop