Letter: Parking ban addresses a symptom, but not the cause

To the Editor:

This letter is a follow-up of the May 4 article ‘Medical office’s on-street parking creates hazard, residents say’

This attention to parking on Northern Parkway has focused on the symptom while ignoring the cause. The cars spilling onto our residential streets are not the problem. They are evidence that the property at 968 Roanoke Avenue, Advanced Dermatology PC, is being used far more intensively than it was ever approved for.

This property began as a single-family home. It was later converted to a single-doctor medical office, operating as what zoning law calls a legal nonconforming use—a use that predates current zoning and may continue, but generally may not be expanded or intensified. The last certificate of occupancy was issued in 1993.

Today it operates as a multi-provider clinic affiliated with a corporation that has more than 40 locations across Long Island, New York City, and New Jersey. That is not simply a continuation of the original use. It is transformational by its substantial increase in its intensity of use.

The town attorney has defended the property by saying it is “grandfathered”  and is still being used as a dermatologist’s office. With respect, that misses the legal question. The issue is not whether the type of business has changed, but whether the use has expanded beyond its original scope. A use can remain the same in kind while becoming unlawful in degree.

A single physician seeing patients in a converted house is fundamentally different from a corporate clinic with multiple providers serving a steady stream of patients. Calling both “a dermatologist’s office” does not answer whether the use has intensified.

When I raised this concern, I was told that parking requirements are based on the size of the building, not the number of people using it. That measures the building, not the use. The building’s square footage has not changed, but its intensity of use clearly has. A parking formula based solely on building size was never intended to account for that change.

The persistent overflow parking is not proof that the parking formula is working. It is evidence that the property is being used far more intensively than when those requirements were established. Yet the town continues to treat the consequences of that increased intensity as merely a parking issue.

The town’s response has been to install “No Parking” signs on the north side of Northern Parkway. Anyone who drives by can see that the signs are routinely ignored and the overflow continues. That should not be surprising. Restricting where cars may park does not reduce the demand created by the property’s use; it merely shifts the cars elsewhere.

The real question is not whether there are enough parking spaces per square foot. It is whether the property’s current intensity of use has lawfully expanded beyond what was originally permitted, and whether the certificate of occupancy reflects what is actually taking place there. Those are questions the town has both the authority—and, I would argue, the obligation—to answer.

Instead, I have received a series of procedural deferrals. I was told to file a formal application. I was told I might lack standing because I do not own the property, even though New York Town Law permits appeals by any aggrieved party, which a directly affected neighbor surely is. When I asked the town’s Code Enforcement office to investigate, I was informed that no zoning determination could be made because there was no pending application or enforcement matter—even though opening enforcement matters is part of that office’s responsibility.

Each response points to a different department or procedural hurdle,
yet none addresses the central question.

I support access to quality medical care, and I have no objection to this practice serving patients. I simply believe a corporate medical office should be held to the same zoning standards as every other property owner. The town should stop treating a land-use question as a parking problem and answer the question that neighborhood residents have been asking all along.

Jeanne Fallot
Riverhead