News

ELIH could get approval for surgical unit expansion Thursday

Eastern Long Island Hospital is expected to get the okay to expand its ambulatory surgical unit at the Village Planning Board’s Sept. 1 meeting.

Hospital officials said technological advances in medicine have enabled many more procedures to be done on an outpatient basis. Ambulatory surgery is the hospital’s fastest growing unit and more space is needed to accommodate procedures, ELIH president and CEO Paul Connor III told Village Board members last spring.

The addition is planned as a single-story structure, but could accommodate a second floor in the future. That’s not in the current plans, Mr. Connor said.

In other business, the board is looking for additional information before giving the nod for a larger than previously approved gasoline island canopy at Mr. Robert’s convenience store owner.

Owner Ali Sahin had obtained a ZBA variance permitting a canopy with sides dipping down two feet from the top. His representative, former mayor Dave Kapell, returned to the Planning Board on Aug. 25 and said the company that makes the canopy can’t properly enclose “unsightly” wiring that would be exposed unless the sides drop down three feet.

Planners want to know whether less than a full foot could be added and still enclose the wiring.

It will still fall to the ZBA to permit the larger canopy, but the Planning Board was asked for its opinion.

The board is also considering an application from Silda Rosales to open an Herbalife office in Bootleg Alley, off Front Street. The space would be used to meet with potential product distributors, not for retail sales, she told the board.

Landlord Anthony Graziano spoke in favor of the application, which will be the subject of a public hearing at the board’s Sept. 29 work session.

After two years of waiting, Amy Martin, who owns the Winter Harbor Gallery at 211 Main St., is expected to get Planning Board approval for an overhanging sign. As a Planning Board member, she recused herself from the discussion. The Village Board recently lifted the prohibition on such signs.

[email protected]