Letters To The Editor

Wishing May Not Be Enough

To The Editor:

I am responding to the article in the Garden City News, “Consultant Presents Zoning Study For 550 Stewart:, which reads as though only a few residents are against the zoning change and that most are in favor. Why does it seem to me that this article portrays the public meeting held Thursday evening at Stewart School, which I attended, as an exercise in futility for the opposition and that the jury has already made its decision in favor of rezoning regardless of the number of letters and speakers opposing the change? I am sympathetic to the residents living on Raymond Court, who have to live with the noise, pollution and traffic congestion generated from Stewart Avenue and Roosevelt Field. But any increase in the amount of vehicles in this area will only add to their woes.

I believe that we are not being given the whole picture. I am fearful that there may be those with their own agenda in regard to this and future projects. Consultant Fish recommends amending the Marine Corps parking lot zoning and if the Marine Base closes this will open up yet another area for residential development. Remember that the old Social Services property is earmarked for residential use and there is a consultant working on St. Paul’s for its possible residential convergence. The School Board President Kenneth Monaghan testified that school enrollment to projected to decrease over the next 10 years based on 2003 data. This may be true but only if the census of Garden City residents remains as it was in 2003. If the population increases then this study provides no real evidence of future student enrollment, especially with the increase amount of family oriented residential units. I feel sure that if these townhouses and condos are built, the developers will advertise them as being located in the Garden City School District as a top enticement for prospective buyers while down playing the traffic congestion, noise, pollution and potential health hazards. Hold on to your wallets ladies and gentlemen for this is just the beginning.

Bob Orosz

Compromise Solution?

Printed By Request:

Dear Mayor Lundquist and Board of Trustees,

Village of Garden City:

I am writing concerning the rezoning of the 550 Stewart Avenue property. I find it disheartening that the concept of mixed-use zoning has apparently not entered into the public debate as perhaps the best compromise solution. These two properties, though small, may be good candidates for this type of development.

As a resident of Stewart Avenue, I too am concerned about traffic into and out of this site. However, I would suggest that any type of traditional, single-use zoning will come at a cost to our Village. Common sense suggests that a large office building will dump out cars at the rush hours and lunchtime, while residential development could potentially overburden the schools without sufficient offsetting tax revenues. A third option, which is to provide the right mix of residential and commercial/retail, thereby creating a relatively self-contained community, should be tax-revenue positive, have minimal deleterious traffic effects, and would have the added benefits of linking Raymond Court into a larger whole and providing an attractive gateway to our village.

In order to be successful, such a mixed-use development should have a varied housing stock, including single family, townhouse and apartments. This variation attracts a range of ages and stages of residents, can foster a great sense of community, and tends to spread out traffic flows throughout the day. But the real key to successful mixed-use planning is allowing carefully chosen commercial and retail uses integrated within the fabric of the site and targeted specifically to the immediate population - think deli, convenience store, dry cleaner, library branch, daycare center - NOT another big box. The townhouses should be live/work units, with a professional office or studio allowed at the street level. The idea is to enhance the self-sufficiency of the neighborhood, and reduce, even at the margin, the number of times per day residents have to get in their cars.

This is not utopian, nor particularly original, thinking. Mixed-use development is taking place around the country as planners and developers attempt to appease residents' concerns about controlling sprawl, providing affordable housing, and enhancing quality of life. Although Long Island, because it is already largely "built out," does not share the same conditions with, say, the suburban fringe of Charlotte, NC, there are more appropriate examples available - particularly on the West Coast - that could serve as a model. Or we could simply look to our own Seventh Street, a particularly attractive and workable example of a traditional downtown - by another name, a mixed-use development.

Uniquely enabled by local control, we should recognize the vacancy of this site as an opportunity to allow something of worth, imagination and foresight to be created, not another addition to our existing traffic congestion problems.

Barbara Olsen Pascale, Assoc. AIA