After 20 years, Bellport coalition nears sewer, downtown wins

After two decades of organizing, Bellport’s biggest goals were no longer just ideas on a flip chart. Brookhaven had put zoning in place for a Greater Bellport Overlay District, county lawmakers had advanced a sewer district plan, and a proposed Bellport Center at 1742 Montauk Highway had drawn $2.4 million in private investment.

The Greater Bellport Coalition’s roots went back further than its official 2006 formation. Joann Neal said the push for a vibrant downtown began in 1992, when she, John Rogers and Nancy Marr started talking about what Bellport and nearby hamlets needed. By the time the coalition produced its 2014 Greater Bellport Land Use Plan, the effort had widened beyond one corner of Bellport to North Bellport, Hagerman and East Patchogue. John Rogers chaired the coalition then, with Anthony Gazzola as vice chair.

Brookhaven Town later turned that vision into policy. On January 13, 2022, it adopted the Greater Bellport Overlay District, including a Bellport Hamlet Center Overlay between Montauk Highway and Atlantic Avenue, south of the Boys & Girls Club of the Bellport Area. The district created four sub-districts and was meant to steer higher-density housing and a linear park or esplanade along the Long Island Rail Road corridor. For a coalition that spent years in meetings and hearings, that was the point where neighborhood ambition became land-use rules.

The sewer fight followed the same long arc. In 2018, Brookhaven received a $30,000 New York State Department of Environmental Conservation planning grant to prepare an engineered plan, map and report for a sewer collection system linking the Greater Bellport Hamlet Center to Suffolk County’s Harrison Avenue Sewage Treatment Plant. A 2023 Suffolk County legislative resolution then described a draft report recommending a town sewer district for the Greater Bellport Hamlet area, with a wastewater collection system and pump station to be connected to Suffolk County Sewer District No. 7 in Medford. That mattered well beyond Bellport: Suffolk County has said cesspools and septic systems are a major source of nitrogen pollution in local bays.

The payoff could reach farther still. In 2024, New York enacted the Suffolk County Water Restoration Act, opening the door to a 0.0125% sales-tax referendum that state officials said could raise roughly $3 billion to $4 billion for clean-water work. In Bellport, the change was already visible in the redevelopment around Montauk Highway. Developer John Farakh Iqbal said he was investing $2.4 million in the Bellport Center project, after renovating the Bellport Sunoco Gas Station and Grab & Go at 1741 Montauk Highway in 2019. Coalition leaders also pointed to a 2023 commitment from Bethpage Federal Credit Union president Linda Armyn to establish a bank in North Bellport, a sign that residents still want more than prettier streets: they want basic services, closer to home.