| stacey.altherr@newsday.com
March 14, 2009
One of the Smithtown properties for which zoning records were subpoenaed
this week by Suffolk prosecutors is a parcel now owned by the son of town
Supervisor Patrick Vecchio.
Town sources say that the Suffolk district attorney has been probing variances
considered by the Zoning Board of Appeals going back several years.
Richard Vecchio bought the property from Town Assessor Gregory Hild. Hild
applied for a variance on his property at 255 Kohr Rd. in Kings Park to build a
2,500-square-foot house. The 10,000-square-foot property included 5,000 square
feet of unbuildable environmentally sensitive slopes, leaving 50 percent of the
total square footage for the home. Records show Hild's application was approved
on March 28, 2000, and he sold the property two months later to Richard
Vecchio. Richard Vecchio couldn't be reached.
The investigators also subpoenaed ZBA records pertaining to another Kings Park
property, according to sources. In September 2006, the DeGraws of Walnut Road
asked for a 38 percent floor area ratio for a 1,164-square-foot home that their
attorney later amended at the meeting to a 28 percent floor area ratio, according
to their attorney, Donald King of Kings Park. They were denied.
King said the denial was unfair
because the DeGraw application and the Hild application were so similar.
Smithtown Planning Director Frank DeRubeis said the difference between the Hild
and DeGraw properties rests with the unbuildable land on the Hild property.
"The two cases ... are basically apples and oranges in comparison,"
he said.
Hild, who inherited the property, said, "I spoke to my neighbors, there
was a public hearing, it was nothing that was out of the ordinary."
Investigators also seized ZBA records for the home of the son of a Building
Department employee, town sources said. The home, also on Walnut Road, was
approved for a variance that increased maximum gross floor area from 25 percent
to 49 percent.
Also taken were documents pertaining to a home owned by Carl and Helene Fallica
in Fort Salonga, according to sources. The Fallicas won a state lawsuit in 2003
against the town when it denied the couple a permit to build a 4,210-square-foot
home. In April, the Fallicas filed a federal suit claiming they were treated
differently than other applicants.