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Lowe’s plan too ambitious Widespread and vehement community opposition to a plan to locate a Lowes Home Improvement store on the site of the South Oaks/Long Island Homes property was aired at a public hearing last week. The testimony of residents concerned about the proposal went on through the night, with the meeting ending at about 2:30 a.m. Couple that with the conditions of traffic, and the congestion in that area, and it is clear what the Town of Oyster Bay must do: Just say no. The plan is not without merit. To their credit, Lowe’s planners went above and beyond in trying to meet with civic groups and to isolate the issues that were important to them. Then they went back to the drawing board, time and time again, to address those issues, modifying, changing and expanding the plan to come up with solutions to residents’ concerns and those of officials in both the Town of Babylon and Oyster Bay and the Village of Amityville. They altered the configuration of traffic on the site, as well as the flow to and from the store for both customers’ vehicles and delivery tractor trailers. They planned to invest millions of dollars to improve the infrastructure, install buffers and do whatever was necessary to make the project work. Nor can we ignore the financial advantages such a store would bring in in terms of real estate tax revenues, both to the Town and to the Amityville School District. Those sorely needed dollars are difficult to turn away. The problem is not a lack of commitment on the part of Lowes to do the right thing, however. Nor is it an unwillingness to make changes and spend money on the best plan possible. It is simply the fact that the location is wrong, and that nothing they can do will change that. Along that already stressed stretch of Sunrise Highway, which borders Oyster Bay and Babylon Town, we have the Sunrise Mall to the west, a major health-care facility to the east, and a proposal to build hundreds of senior housing units on both sides in both Babylon and Oyster Bay towns. We are already experiencing the problems of development there. As a result, New York State has undertaken numerous traffic studies and has a plan, scheduled to begin next year, to make road improvements designed to reduce traffic and mitigate unsafe driving conditions. To ignore those realities, and to allow development of another huge store in that area would be irresponsible. The only question, then, is how does the community allow that land to be developed, because surely Long Island Homes, as the land owner, has the right to develop it. One idea is for the Town of Oyster Bay to increase the maximum units of senior housing it has stated it would allow in that area and to develop the site as entirely residential. That would add minimally to the traffic and be a more palatable plan. We hope that idea, and other considerations are given to this plan and that the Town makes the right decision.
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