The following excerpt is from an article by Carl MacGowan that was published in the Sunday, January 17th edition of Newsday. You can read the entire piece here.

A mix of apartment units and a traffic circle

Rich Murdocco, who publishes The Foggiest Idea, a blog on real estate issues, said four years is relatively fast for a major Long Island development to get approved. He credited the Belmont developers for accepting input from community leaders.

But more significant, he said, was Central Islip’s crying need for economic development and the developers’ proposal to reuse existing buildings rather than construct new ones.

“The structures are there already,” Murdocco said. “There’s not 200 acres of pristine woods that are going to be developed… In this case, because the structures are there and they‘re just kind of enhancing them, there’s less chance of community pushback.”