by Carolyn James

S.C. Leg. Maxine Postal speaks at Smarth Growth informational meeting at Babylon Town Hall.

You’ve heard the complaints before. Too many malls, too much traffic and too little open space.

Now the County, in cooperation with the Towns believes it has a plan to stem the "malling" and "paving" of Long Island and, at the same time, to protect the environment and the economic engine that drives Long Island, and provides jobs.

It’s called Smart Growth and the concept was outlined and defined to local leaders at Babylon Town Hall recently. On hand to present the concept and field questions from the audience were local County legislators Maxine Postal and David Bishop, as well as a panel of planners, environmentalists and builders.

"This is a very important issue that has the ability to change the quality of our lives not only here in the Town of Babylon but throughout Long Island," said Postal. "So it is important that we get together as a community and introduce this concept and let everyone know what it is about and get input and ideas from you."

"In looking to revitalize and protect our communities, there has to be community involvement," said Bishop. "Like the downtown revitalization programs I sponsored, we have to continue to work together looking to our Mayors, and civic organizations and residents to come up with the plans and ideas."

Essentially, Smart Growth is a land use policy the county is asking each town to adopt. It emphasizes community-based planning, consistent with the needs and objectives of the local community and the region as a whole. It also encourages redeveloping sites already in use and to protect valuable and diminishing open space.

The concept is being explored at the state level too. A committee, charged by Gov. George Pataki, is preparing a report that will outline a statewide proposal in detail, and planners are awaiting the completion of that report.

"Until we see that report, all of this is very conceptual," said Babylon Town Councilman Steve Bellone who worked to bring the Smart Growth forum to Babylon. "Once the report is complete, however, we should be getting some direction from the state as to where all of this is going," he said.

Pat Duggan, of Sustainable Long Island, said there is a relationship between the economy, development, and environment and that the best way to protect Long Island’s quality of life is to get citizens involved in all those aspects of life on Long Island.

"We cannot continue to build ourselves into oblivion," he said. "The reason we came to live here on Long Island was because we liked open space, green trees, clean air and clean water and if we don’t protect those things then Long Island is no longer a place we want to live in."

Smart growth encourages mixed land uses; walkable communities, compact building designs, open space, farmland, historic sites, transportation choices and collaborative planning between government and the people. But most of all, it will, said supporters, bring solutions to the problems plaguing Long Islanders as they head into a new millennium.

"Smart Growth and smart planning is crucial for the preservation of the quality of life for us on Long Island," agreed David Sprintzen, a professor of philosophy and co-director of the Institute for Sustainable Development. "But we can’t take a short step to get where we are to where we need to go and it can’t be business as usual. It’s easy to simply widen a road but using creativity and changing attitudes and offering alternative transportation is what needs to be done."

But all of that will take vision and planning and a concerted effort on the part of lawmakers, planners and the public they serve, said Sprintzen. He points out, however, that old habits continue, and change is harder to come by. "Right now there is a $6 billion plan to widen every road on Long Island," he said. "Can you imagine what we could do if we would use those funds for some light rail or other sophisticated transportation services?" he asked.

Sustainable Long Island is one of several groups opposing the New York State Department of Transportation’s (DOT), Plan 200, a 20-year vision by the DOT to ease traffic on Long Island by widening and creating new roads. Highways being looked at as candidates for the changes include the Northern and Southern State parkways, the Meadowbook Route 110, Babylon-Farmingdale Road and Sunrise Highway. "All over Long Island there is a lot more interest in reducing traffic impacts on communities and slowing the traffic that comes through neighborhoods than there is in more pavement," said Neal Lewis, executive director of the Long Island Neighborhood Network. "As it looks now, the Long Island Transportation Plan is more of a blueprint for future battles between communities and DOT than a consensus about the future of transportation."

Many towns and villages have already adopted the smart growth concepts into their planning as residents have demanded them long before they were established as an official policy. In Amityville Village, for example, three run-down houses are being purchased by that municipality with the help of county revitalization funds, and the area is being transformed into an waterfront park. The Village also fast tracked a plan by Walgreens to demolish an old industrial building and construct a new retail store there.

"Creating open space and redeveloping existing commercial sites into new attractive locations is certainly part of what we are doing here in Amityville," said Mayor Peter Imbert. "If this is what the Smart Growth program is about, then I would say we have already signed on."

In Lindenhurst, a building in the Village’s commercial district, was recently purchased, again with county funding, for use by the Town’s Arts Council because of its proximity to transportation and its accessibility to pedestrian traffic.

In Babylon Village, one of the last parcels of open space was snatched out of the hands of developers and became a lush, green golf course.

Sprintzen said there are some efforts in other areas like the city of Glen Cove, which is revitalizing its downtown waterfront and Huntington, which is using some creativity in its housing needs.

"The problem is that those who are used to doing things the old ways, particularly the developers and the business community, tend to view themselves as the realists and everyone else as ‘pie in the sky,’ said Sprintzen. "The fact is, however, unless we change our ways, we are going to only continue to make Long Island more congested and use up every open space we have; we will literally be paved over and our wide roads will take us to no place but uninteresting places with huge parking lots."