Suffolk County Legislator Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) revisited the decades-long effort to preserve the Setauket-Port Jefferson Station Greenway during the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association’s Tuesday, Oct. 27, meeting, warning residents that development could fundamentally change the character of their community if planning does not keep pace.

Englebright traced the Greenway’s origins to shortly after he was first elected to the county legislature in 1983, when he discovered a nearly 3-mile stretch of state-owned land between Port Jefferson Station and Setauket. Originally intended for a highway bypass, the corridor remained undeveloped after local business owners raised concerns that the road would hurt commerce.

Working with local civic leaders, Englebright saw an opportunity to turn the land into a connection between communities that had long been divided by perceptions of class and status.

“At that time, talking about in the 1980s, there was a palpable perspective that some individuals had that if you lived in Port Jefferson Station, that it was somehow not nearly as worthy as if you lived in Setauket,” Englebright said. “I didn’t like that perspective.”

He said the Greenway could help bring the communities together rather than separate them, connecting residents through shared public space. Englebright also helped secure funding for the project, including $2.5 million for planning while serving in the state assembly and a $5 million federal grant secured with former Congressman Tim Bishop (D). The path eventually opened to bicyclists and pedestrians.

But preserving the Greenway, Englebright said, is part of a larger effort to protect the area from the kind of unchecked development he witnessed growing up in Bayside, Queens.