After having been to the other meeting at the Bennett Pavilion a few weeks ago, I decided it would be very interesting to attend this meeting on May 22nd as well. Heck, I’m just skipping out of work for an extended lunch -- starting at 9:30 am. Big Angry Man is getting even angrier every time I pull one of these stunts, but I go anyway.
I get there at 10:03 am, learn my lesson about making note of my parking spot before I hit the funky little parking meter machine. Pay $1.00 for two hours and run like crazy in high heels across the street and over to the pavilion, glad that it stopped raining.
The hall was crowded, more so than last time with about 200 people in attendance. I hurried to the second to last row in the back, but had a clear view of the speakers from there. I inadvertently sat next to the Newsday reporter of the moment, who seemed far more interested in her blackberry than her note pad and was extremely chatty with the Newsday photographer that walked in after I did.
Are you supposed to applaud at these things after someone speaks? Can they hand out a list of rules for this? No. But we did get a list of topics on the Environmental Impact Statement. And then I realized… I’m in over my head, and this is going to take forever.
There was a large contingent of representatives from the Lighthouse project and its various committees, which Mr. Wang would later introduce one at a time. Each group has a task at hand; each consultant comes with the highest credentials. I knew that this project was tremendous, but you don’t realize how tremendous until you hear what it takes to actually develop Long Island’s largest parking lot into something spectacular.
Scott Rechler gave a power point presentation identifying the phases of the project. I’m sure he can do this in his sleep as he has already attended the 100th Community outreach meeting only the day before. The phases are as follows:
Education Phase: What the community wants & needs.
Issue Identification Phase: And for some reason, today’s issue was affordable housing.
Solution Phase: How to solve the issues.
$10,000,000 has already been spent in studies on the impact to Long Island this project will have. They have been studying the traffic situation for years and collected data and assembled consultants with regional and national expertise.
Would you believe there are consultants that just study parking? That’s all they do. I never thought of such a thing. But if you check the Lighthouse website, you will see the various groups of consultants retained and what their specialties are from traffic and water to landscaping.
I will tell you that when Mr. Wang addressed the audience, he invited everyone to be there for the ground breaking ceremony in July of 2009 “… right after we get the Stanley Cup for the NY Islanders.” For this group, he didn’t have to say that. The people in this audience were all there with their own agendas and none of them were hockey related. But he said it, because I really think it’s what he wants.
Without describing each speaker’s points, let me give you a brief overview:
Affordable Housing! I thought I was going to beat my head against the seat in front of me. Each group lobbied for their piece of the affordable housing pie. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but with the 2,300 residential units this project will create, and only 20% being required to be “work force” (I guess that’s the new word for “affordable”?) housing, if you do the math, that’s 460 units. Not bad, but everyone wanted a piece of them.
They want retirement housing, minority housing, developmentally disabled housing, low income housing, and there could have been a group there representing animals too, but I could only stay for the first two hours! What I didn’t realize is that the 20% of the “workforce” housing could actually be developed off-site of this 150 ace proposal which led my cynical, non-politically educated mind to wonder; Hey! Are they looking for the Lighthouse to build a new apartment building in downtown Hempstead? What else are they looking for them to build for the “community” in order to get this grand plan to come to fruition? A new school, a library and a church? As one speaker mentioned “… Hempstead is the HUB of Nassau County and it has been left out of the process.”
Secondary to the housing question are the traffic questions. I found these very interesting, because even though there was talk of collecting traffic data, one speaker said that “… no where does this scope list counts of cars on the Meadowbrook and Southern State Parkways.” Uh oh.
Also, as trucks are not allowed on those parkways, they have no way of getting into the area except through local streets. Also, a big Uh Oh. The transportation study ALONE could take five to eight years. If they think this is going to be completed in 10 years, they better have solutions quickly.
Following the traffic concern was waste disposal and other like environmental concerns. What about new landfills? What above safeguarding residents from contaminants from the mountains of trash that would be generated each day? What about the solid waste and sewage treatment plants that need to be built or renovated in order to accommodate this project? Good questions, all of them. This is all what the Scoping session was designed to go over.
I will say that no one seemed against the plan; they just want it to be thought out properly. But in Nassau County does thinking it through properly mean 25 years of studies? Or can this process actually MOVE along? And can Long Island finally do something about their problem transportation system now that gas is at a premium and none of us can get anywhere without a car? The original design of Long Island as a suburban paradise is choking us to death now with traffic and air pollution.
No one asked how many jobs this would generate during the building phase or after its completion. No one asked how much tax revenue it would generate to stimulate our shrinking economy. On my way out, I heard one really good environmental question posed: Can they utilize solar energy in any way?
Considering the design of the roof of the renovated Coliseum, I thought that was a great question. Why not? Disney utilizes so much technology to make their theme parks self-sufficient in so many ways. Why not the Lighthouse project?
This is going to be a long, tough road people. Now, never once has Mr. Wang said that he would pull the plug on the Islanders should this not happen but one speaker did stand up and ask if the five acre Coliseum and 72 acres of asphalt would be a viable instrument for the County should the NY Islanders LEAVE it??? I’m certain that question was posed more to the Town Board than to Mr. Wang. The answer is clearly… NO.
BTW: More than 50,000 jobs would be generated during the construction phase and 20,000 permanent jobs would be created after its completion. And with this Island’s current 5% unemployment rate, and declining population, those are pretty good stats in themselves.
A second meeting will be held on May 27th at 7pm. If you can make it, try to.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Is there a Lighthouse at the End of the Tunnel?
Paul Lancey seems to think so. On May 15th, the Booster Club was treated to a brief presentation on the progress of the Lighthouse project. Those who have been to the two past Open House functions have seen the very slick commercial. But the presentation brought forth some things I found very interesting.
A project of this magnitude is expected to take a certain amount of time, but as was brought up by Mr. Lancey, a similar project called Westgate was recently completed in Phoenix AZ. It’s the place they just played the Super Bowl in February. That project started approximately the same time as the Lighthouse. The difference? We know the difference. This is Long Island and you can’t change a street lamp without four layers of government spending time and tax dollars simply investigating the impact on the town should said lamp post be changed. Meanwhile, political terms will end and the process will start anew. Those of us who grew up on this Island know this dynamic all too well. It’s called running to stand still.
Here we have 150 acres total of prime Nassau County real estate with a large portion of it sitting cold, stark and barren with the exception of that aging, unimpressive oval in the middle of a parking lot. The good thing about the emptiness is that in order to build this proposed project it will not require any condemnation of private property. The field mice can’t revolt.
There is a 10 year build out plan for this project, and if they start when they’re supposed to, sometime in July of 2009, I might actually still be alive when it’s completed…. If I’m lucky. The Coliseum renovation will take about 2 ½ years and is supposedly not going to interfere with any Islander Hockey season. After all… The Devils started out on the road in order for their building to be completed. The NHL is willing to work with scheduling. I’m certain they will have to do a little juggling and there will be some areas of the building that won’t be finished when we arrive for a new season. But who cares? We’ll deal.
Some numbers that impressed me for this “mixed use” project were as follows:
2,300 residences will be built, with 20% of them being next generation housing. (I’ll be eyeing a retirement condo myself.)
The project is estimated to be able to generate $218,000 a DAY in tax revenue.
The project should generate 50,000 construction related jobs.
It will create 20,000 permanent jobs upon completion.
There will be 1,000 hotel rooms.
There will be 250,000 sq ft of conference center space capable of hosting some major sports related events like, let’s say… THE NHL DRAFT!
There will be 17,230 subterranean parking spaces. (You’ll get a miner’s helmet and a map.. J/k)
The project is 8.5 million square feet of space, and the Empire State building is only 1.3 million square feet of space. (I can’t count that high.)
There are 2.8 million people on Long Island. (70% of them are on the LIE at 5 pm on any given weekday.)
The government is spending $17,000,000 just to study transportation on this Island…. AGAIN.
80% of the wealth of most Long Islanders is their homes, and the housing market is declining.
30% of the sub-prime mortgage mess is right here… on Long Island. (I just threw that in there because it still bothers me.)
Ok, so impressed and scared. Even more scary than the numbers game is the fact that there were really “Jetsons” style parking technologies brought up that scared me to no end. Could there be GPS style parking spots guiding you to your underground space from the highway? There is “Smart” technology out there to do just that. To me, it would probably call me by name when I park and ask me how many drinks I had during the evening, and report back to my husband, or worse… not let me leave. No thanks. I‘ll be parking across the street, and taking that Trolley enjoying the night air.
If you can actually get to a train station, and get off at Mineola, the Lighthouse Trolley will be able to pick you up there. That may be the best bet if gas prices don’t get any better.
But in order to get this done in a timely manner, we all need to do our part. Visit the new Lighthouse project website at http://www.lighthouseli.com for all the news and upcoming events. Become part of the solution by getting involved. On May 22nd is the first public scoping meeting at the Town of Hempstead at 10 am. If you can’t make that meeting, there is another one at 7 pm on May 27th. If you’d like more information but would like to speak to someone, see a Lighthouse representative at the next NY Islanders Open House event on June 4th.
Let’s put Long Island back on the map for something more than the Hamptons and our traffic.
A project of this magnitude is expected to take a certain amount of time, but as was brought up by Mr. Lancey, a similar project called Westgate was recently completed in Phoenix AZ. It’s the place they just played the Super Bowl in February. That project started approximately the same time as the Lighthouse. The difference? We know the difference. This is Long Island and you can’t change a street lamp without four layers of government spending time and tax dollars simply investigating the impact on the town should said lamp post be changed. Meanwhile, political terms will end and the process will start anew. Those of us who grew up on this Island know this dynamic all too well. It’s called running to stand still.
Here we have 150 acres total of prime Nassau County real estate with a large portion of it sitting cold, stark and barren with the exception of that aging, unimpressive oval in the middle of a parking lot. The good thing about the emptiness is that in order to build this proposed project it will not require any condemnation of private property. The field mice can’t revolt.
There is a 10 year build out plan for this project, and if they start when they’re supposed to, sometime in July of 2009, I might actually still be alive when it’s completed…. If I’m lucky. The Coliseum renovation will take about 2 ½ years and is supposedly not going to interfere with any Islander Hockey season. After all… The Devils started out on the road in order for their building to be completed. The NHL is willing to work with scheduling. I’m certain they will have to do a little juggling and there will be some areas of the building that won’t be finished when we arrive for a new season. But who cares? We’ll deal.
Some numbers that impressed me for this “mixed use” project were as follows:
2,300 residences will be built, with 20% of them being next generation housing. (I’ll be eyeing a retirement condo myself.)
The project is estimated to be able to generate $218,000 a DAY in tax revenue.
The project should generate 50,000 construction related jobs.
It will create 20,000 permanent jobs upon completion.
There will be 1,000 hotel rooms.
There will be 250,000 sq ft of conference center space capable of hosting some major sports related events like, let’s say… THE NHL DRAFT!
There will be 17,230 subterranean parking spaces. (You’ll get a miner’s helmet and a map.. J/k)
The project is 8.5 million square feet of space, and the Empire State building is only 1.3 million square feet of space. (I can’t count that high.)
There are 2.8 million people on Long Island. (70% of them are on the LIE at 5 pm on any given weekday.)
The government is spending $17,000,000 just to study transportation on this Island…. AGAIN.
80% of the wealth of most Long Islanders is their homes, and the housing market is declining.
30% of the sub-prime mortgage mess is right here… on Long Island. (I just threw that in there because it still bothers me.)
Ok, so impressed and scared. Even more scary than the numbers game is the fact that there were really “Jetsons” style parking technologies brought up that scared me to no end. Could there be GPS style parking spots guiding you to your underground space from the highway? There is “Smart” technology out there to do just that. To me, it would probably call me by name when I park and ask me how many drinks I had during the evening, and report back to my husband, or worse… not let me leave. No thanks. I‘ll be parking across the street, and taking that Trolley enjoying the night air.
If you can actually get to a train station, and get off at Mineola, the Lighthouse Trolley will be able to pick you up there. That may be the best bet if gas prices don’t get any better.
But in order to get this done in a timely manner, we all need to do our part. Visit the new Lighthouse project website at http://www.lighthouseli.com for all the news and upcoming events. Become part of the solution by getting involved. On May 22nd is the first public scoping meeting at the Town of Hempstead at 10 am. If you can’t make that meeting, there is another one at 7 pm on May 27th. If you’d like more information but would like to speak to someone, see a Lighthouse representative at the next NY Islanders Open House event on June 4th.
Let’s put Long Island back on the map for something more than the Hamptons and our traffic.
Not quite Writer's Block...
More like writer's SHOCK. While I have a pad here with a list of items that need to be written, I'm noticing my free time is not cooperating with my needs.
I did manage to finish the Booster Club newsletter article covering Garth Snow's stand up routine. So if you missed the club meeting, you should have the recap in a few weeks.
Some interesting things regarding the Lighthouse project were presented by Paul Lancey, so I'll let you know about those as well.
Just a few things that aren't making it into the newsletter about Snow: He is genuinely funny, and so much more at ease in one on one situations. He threw me completely off guard when he sat down one seat away from me in the first row and said "Hey Dee. Just keep your hands to yourself." Of course this was just a joke (I think), but as I almost sent my Starbucks flying off the 2nd grader style desk, I could only think of responding, "Oh crap! What have you heard???" I would have followed it up with "Lies, lies. All lies." But he was already laughing.
On the way out of the meeting I had to ask him why he can't convey the same open, honest manner on camera as he does in person. His answer was equally honest.
"I hate cameras. Hate them. Too many years of being a player and being grilled by the media. But I'm working on it."
Also on my plate... home plate... as the LI Riptide managed another first place showing this weekend and now everyone wants to make it into the blog.
"Was that quote Blog worthy Dee?" I heard for two days. Good grief... I've created a monster.
Don't forget the upcoming Lighthouse Town Of Hempstead meetings coming up. We've got to find a way of pushing this mammoth undertaking through or we'll all be taking the ferry to Bridgeport in a few years because there won't be any hockey on LI.
And that's NOT A QUOTE FROM ANYONE.... Just woman's intuition!
I did manage to finish the Booster Club newsletter article covering Garth Snow's stand up routine. So if you missed the club meeting, you should have the recap in a few weeks.
Some interesting things regarding the Lighthouse project were presented by Paul Lancey, so I'll let you know about those as well.
Just a few things that aren't making it into the newsletter about Snow: He is genuinely funny, and so much more at ease in one on one situations. He threw me completely off guard when he sat down one seat away from me in the first row and said "Hey Dee. Just keep your hands to yourself." Of course this was just a joke (I think), but as I almost sent my Starbucks flying off the 2nd grader style desk, I could only think of responding, "Oh crap! What have you heard???" I would have followed it up with "Lies, lies. All lies." But he was already laughing.
On the way out of the meeting I had to ask him why he can't convey the same open, honest manner on camera as he does in person. His answer was equally honest.
"I hate cameras. Hate them. Too many years of being a player and being grilled by the media. But I'm working on it."
Also on my plate... home plate... as the LI Riptide managed another first place showing this weekend and now everyone wants to make it into the blog.
"Was that quote Blog worthy Dee?" I heard for two days. Good grief... I've created a monster.
Don't forget the upcoming Lighthouse Town Of Hempstead meetings coming up. We've got to find a way of pushing this mammoth undertaking through or we'll all be taking the ferry to Bridgeport in a few years because there won't be any hockey on LI.
And that's NOT A QUOTE FROM ANYONE.... Just woman's intuition!
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