Stars Café site plan approved: Firefighters, EMTs get tax break
It’s official: Stars Café at White Oak has Town Board approval for its site plan to officially convert what was once a wine tasting business to a coffee and packaged goods operation in the Center to parallel its popular gathering spot in Shelter Island Heights.
At the start of the summer in 2025 Lydia Martinez opened the site and found it appropriate for a second location for Stars — this one at the corner where Manwaring Road and Route 114 — the same corner shared by IGA and the entryway to Sylvester Manor.
The major obstacle of concern was parking, with customers tending to park on the roadway outside of the fence, to run in for coffee and Ms. Martinez’s pastries, wraps or other home baked specialties that have long been staples at the original café in the Heights.
Discussion at the June 29 public hearing focused on customers parking outside of the fence. Vegetation is to be planted to end that practice.
Councilman Albert Dickson had suggested a traffic study of the area that is also across Manwaring Road from what can be a busy area at times. Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams said she didn’t think a traffic study was necessary and Deputy Supervisor Meg Larsen said it would impose the cost of a study on a Town business.
Mr. Dickson said the traffic study would be “prudent” but the Board ultimately approved the site plan without the study after Matt Sherman of Sherman Engineering said if more parking is needed on the Stars Café lot, space could be used on White Oak’s larger lot.
Tax exemptions
Volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians will get tax exemptions for their service to the community.
The issue has been popular with the community to encourage more people to join one or both volunteer services, but votes that provided exemptions to seniors and to those providing accessory dwelling units couldn’t happen at the same time.
At the earlier meeting where the other exemptions passed, this measure had to be delayed because only two members were available to vote while two members of the Town Board had to recuse themselves. Supervisor Brach-Williams is treasurer of the Fire Department Board of Commissioners, and Liz Hanley’s husband is a volunteer firefighter. A third Town Board member, Councilman Benjamin Dyett, was absent from the meeting leaving only two members to vote on issue. But on June 29 the exemptions for the volunteers passed by votes of 3-0. Details of the amount of the exemptions are on the Town website and listed in the agenda for the June 29 meeting.
