Residents in ritzy LI town protest planned mega NYC-style apartment complex set to house 28 PhD students

Residents of a ritzy community on Long Island’s North Shore are protesting plans to build a “mega NYC-style apartment complex” in their village — saying the development would threaten the “legacy, character and exclusivity” of the area.A Monday morning rally organized by a group called Save Oyster Bay Cove and targeting the 11-acre plot on Sandy Hill Road will have speakers talk on the potential impacts of building a proposed 28-unit housing complex for post-doctoral students working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory about 10 minutes away.The group is worried about such things as traffic, safety and a future strain on local infrastructure in the tiny tony enclave of about 2,200 — which includes celebrities and billionaires, according to Evelyn Ain, the group’s president.“They’re turning it into a residential community, meaning the individuals are going to live there now, they’re going to be adults and residents of the Oyster Bay Cove,” she told The Post on Sunday.

“Oyster Bay Cove is a single-residence area.There is no multi-family housing.“We have a lot of celebrities living here, a lot of people with a lot of money, billionaires,” she continued.

“That’s why they live here.There’s no traffic, there’s no pollution.

And by having them turn this into [an] apartment building, we’re going to have traffic, we’ll have big shuttles go back and forth.” Ain, who lives on Sandy Hill Road, said she is worried that the local narrow, windy roads can’t accommodate more people, nor could the local schools if the potential new residents were to bring their families.“These are people that are going to come here not for two or three months — they’re going to come here for a couple of years to do research,” she said.“There could definitely be multiple children per unit.”The demonstrators will also protest the local mayor, Charles Goulding, and the village board for paving the way for zoning laws to be amended to let the ...