2011-07-07

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76th Year, No. 27 Freeport, N.Y. 11520 The Community Newspaper Thursday, July 7, 2011 75$
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THE FREEPORT MEMORIAL LIBRARY AND THE FREEPORT
HISTORICAL SOCIETY will present an exhibit of photographs of houses,
events, and people from historic Freeport from July 2-29. The above
photograph shows 322 South Main Street. There will be a reception at
the library this Saturday, July 9, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. If you have
items you would like to share, please bring them to the reception.
Town unveils plan to redevelop Lighthouse Project
by Laura Schofer
The Hempstead Town Board recently
approved a new development zone for the
77 acres of property surrounding the Nassau
Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The zone will
have mixed-use development that
Council woman Dorothy Goosby said is
"sustainable and will complement the sub-urban
character of the surrounding commu-nities."
This proposed development, once called
the Lighthouse project because of its inclu-sion
of two skyscrapers, will go hand-in-hand
with County Executive Edward
Mangano's "Economic Development and
Job Creation Plan" that refurbishes the
Nassau Coliseum with a proposed $400
million of taxpayer money.
The Town of Hempstead denied the
Lighthouse plan originally submitted by
Charles Wang and his partner in 2009 that
included a convention center, a five-star
hotel, retail and office spaces and 2,300
residences.
This new development zone, now 77
acres, compared to the 150-acre develop-ment
that also included the Nassau
Coliseum and a minor league ballfield, is
described by town officials as "flexible."
The new development zone will have a
lower density and includes a development
total of 5.4 million square feet compared
with an estimated 10-13.5 million square
feet of development under the Lighthouse
proposal. Development permitted includes
convention facilities, hotels, retail, restau-rants,
offices, residential units and enter-tainment
uses abutting the Nassau
Coliseum.
The maximum building height pre-scribed
under the town's zone is 100 feet
(nine stories), which applies to hotels.
Mixed-use, office and most other structures
are capped at four stories. Buildings which
are exclusively residential are restricted to
three stories. The new zone also provides
for up to 500 new homes, including afford-able
and next generation and workforce
homes.
An essential element of the town's zon-ing
alternative is its provision for traffic
mitigation. Included in the mitigation plan
is a system of roadways within the
Coliseum area, "which would redistribute
traffic, addressing burdens that would oth-erwise
accompany development of this sig-nificance,"
reads the town's press release.
But Claudia Borecky, a Democratic can-didate
for town councilwoman, opposed
the new plan, calling it "arbitrary and capri-cious."
Furthermore, she believes that the "town
cannot rewrite code that deviates from a
proposal by a private business. The town
attempted to change code that deviated
from the builder's plan to develop the Army
Base in Bellmore. The court found that the
town could not change code to dictate what
can or cannot be built on the premises. It is
my contention that likewise, the town can-not
change code that restricts development
at the Coliseum after the plans were drafted
and public hearings were held on the
Lighthouse project," Ms. Borecky wrote in
a statement to this paper.
Ms. Borecky added that the town's new
district limitations render the 77-acre parcel
"economically unfeasible for smart
growth."
But town officials disagree.
"Hempstead Town has worked hard to
accommodate reasonable development at
the site surrounding the coliseum," stated
Town Supervisor Kate Murray in a
prepared statement. "Dorothy
Goosby, as well as all of my colleagues on
the Town Board, promised to provide for
reasonable development at Nassau's Hub;
but we've been clear that we would only
approve a zone that can be sustained by
the environment and the local infrastruc-ture.
This zone holds true to those priori-ties
while accommodating development
that complements the suburban character
of our area, supports our tax base, stimu-lates
the economy, creates jobs and facili-tates
a new or refurbished Coliseum for
our hometown hockey team, the
Islanders."
At the Freeport
library
page 2
Mural completed
at BHS
page 3
Bernie Rader
honored
page 7
More baseball in
Freeport
page 5