Addiction facility proposed for EPCAL takes step forward
A proposed addiction research and treatment facility at the south end of the eastern runway at the Enterprise Park at Calverton won’t be subjected to an environmental impact study after all.
After hearing from a number of the plan’s proponents Tuesday, Riverhead Town Board members voted 4-1 against requiring the applicant, Peconic Care, to conduct the impact study.
Supervisor Sean Walter cast the only vote in favor of requiring the study.
The project will still need site plan approval from the Town Board before it can begin construction.
Dr. Jon Morgenstern, director of addiction services for Northwell Health and a professor of psychiatry, said Northwell strongly supports this project.
“We believe this project will be one of a kind,” he said.
The proposed facility will combined addiction treatment with addiction research, creating something that doesn’t exist anywhere in the United States, he said.
Dr. Morgenstern said Peconic Care’s proposed location is ideal and noted that there are very few addiction treatment centers on Long Island.
Councilman Jim Wooten said he felt the environmental impact study would do “nothing more than stall this.”
“This is probably the single silliest location to put an addiction treatment facility, next to an active runway,” Mr. Walter said in casting the sole dissenting vote.
Photo: Jon Morgenstern, Northwell Health’s director of addiction services, addresses the Town Board Tuesday. (Credit: Tim Gannon)
