In response to Ms. Diane Bentivegna’s chimera regarding New Hyde Park, I think people need to bring a little perspective to this matter.
She writes:
“The LIRR Expansion Project was our alarm clock and, yes, the sleeping giant has been awakened. We remain vigilant. We remain united. We pledge to preserve and protect our suburban neighborhoods from the political agendas of some who have demonstrated little interest in our values, our culture and the goals we have for our families and future.”
My God.
The people making these arguments have to understand something: this is being played out all over the country. In San Francisco, where restrictive zoning and housing policy have made shelter unaffordable for any new resident who isn’t a millionaire and made people who never dreamed they could be made homeless live in the streets, now splattered with human feces, fierce political battles are waged. And even so, local voters keep a tight hold on building any additional housing. They like things just fine, especially since restricting the supply of something they already own makes the price go up. By a lot.
Nashville has experienced explosive growth in the past decade. There too, locals complain about all these “outsiders” coming in and rearranging the landscape. Oddly enough, they have no trouble taking the outsiders’ wealth and jobs they bring.
In New York City, housing is tight, but at least we’re sometimes enlightened enough to do something about it. Using a loophole to take scarce Manhattan acreage assigned for affordable housing at Hudson Yards so Stephen Ross’ Related Companies could build luxury condos instead, was not one of those enlightened moments. And so, more displacement is the result. As is the wretched excess of those gauche apartment units.
When I first wrote about this issue for The Island Now, I quoted the great 20th Century philosopher Buddy Hackett. Now, I must quote another one, named Myron Cohen, who famously said “Everybody gotta be someplace.”
I came here in 1962. The land that sites Pro Health Plaza was virgin forest. What was then called “Long Island Jewish Hospital” was a solitary building on Lakeville Road. The Sperry defense plant was still in operation.
Then the developers came, mimicking William Levitt’s suburban formula. At this time, Suffolk was almost all farmland. So too, was a great deal of Nassau. In that time, over 6 million newcomers made Long Island their home.
Oddly enough, our school systems didn’t fall over a cliff from this massive influx. And from that one example alone, you can see how hollow the arguments against building new housing are.
Now then: Who gets to be the chosen one to stand athwart the Exit 33 overpass and shout, “enough is enough?”
Because by that standard, anyone who came before us could have denied anyone who is making this argument today the choice to live here. But that is how myopic people are. There is this shrill, messianic outcry as to what will befall our communities if we allow more people to live here. History shows they’re wrong.
I suppose it is natural for people to resist change. I’ve personally seen a lot of it here, and yes, the traffic can be abhorrent, but I wouldn’t say the overall quality of life has suffered. We’re entering a whole new demographic reality in this country, and it must be accommodated.
We don’t really have a choice. We can’t keep advocating policies that shaft the young and the old and deny them their right to decent housing they can afford in places they elect to live in. No one should haughtily reserve for themselves the right to decide who can live here and who can’t.
Those decisions not only affect your town, they ripple across an entire country.
Having said that, I don’t think anyone is proposing building a monstrosity like Co-Op City here. Concerns about population density are legitimate. The proposals being floated for more apartment spaces adjacent to mass transit are actually quite modest in their scope.
Aside from that, at bottom, I don’t think it’s the “Noise and The Traffic” that bothers people. When you’re surrounded by 20 million people, the complaint doesn’t sound genuine.
I think the real issue is xenophobia. That’s what they mean by preserving “tradition, culture and values.”
But the preservation angle provides a fig leaf of moral cover the advocates need. These policies are wrong-headed, exclusionary and destructive.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
In response to Mr. Davret’s rather self-serving followup to my LTE regarding New Hyde Park’s future, it is important to note that he is also the President and CEO of FloMartin Securities, which specializes in, among other areas, real estate offerings and ‘other specialized investments.” As expected, his interests are far more guided by the aspirations of big (over)developers who currently salivate at the very thought of bulldozing and overbuilding our village. Just a reminder, Mr. Davret, we live in a democratic republic and the voices of the homeowners and taxpayers of New Hyde Park have spoken — loudly and clearly. We will not sell out to the highest bidder. Move on.
Spoken like a man who does not live near a transit corridor.
Long Island is already grossly overdeveloped. If you don’t think the overall quality of life has suffered, you’re not paying attention. If you think the “real issue” behind our rejection of multi-story, high-density housing is xenophobia, you don’t know New Hyde Park. Schools, roads, transportation, energy, water – they’re all stressed to their limits of utility and safety. When is enough, enough?
Make no mistake, the impetus for this type of development has nothing to do with housing the young and the elderly. It is the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Developers want to build apartments that will rent upward of $3,000 a month, and they want the IDA to take the properties off the tax rolls for decades. The residents of the Most Overtaxed County in America simply cannot afford to shoulder more of the burden so developers can get rich(er).
Anne Stevenson
New Hyde Park
My God is my response to you as well. My family were the farmers you are referring to. They farmed most of what is one Nassau County and western Suffolk. These areas were mostly farmland and forest, not populated and settled the way they are now. This my friend is suburbia. The way we like to keep it, suburban, not urban. Just because something is being done elsewhere in the country as you stated San Francisco and Nashville does not mean it’s right for here. This is an island with limited land.
You and the companies you are associated with are the ones that stand to gain from the urbanization of Long Island. Tax breaks to multi million and multibillion dollar companies are a detriment to homeowners on Long Island. We have some of the highest real estate taxes in the country and by giving breaks as insensitives to these builders you are simply going to increase the taxes on the already existing homeowners and companies that are here. I cannot comprehend giving multi million dollar builders tax breaks and incentives and grants. What they are doing is business if they want to do business here than they should foot the cost, not the homeowning taxpayers that are already here
I am a 57-year-old resident of new Hyde Park. I have lived here all my life as did my mother, her parents, and their parents. I have no problem with the diversity that exists in the community in which I live. That is part of what makes it such a wonderful community.
There are plenty of very affordable places where you could build your transit oriented communities in Westchester and upstate New York. Long Island is exactly that, an island,we are surrounded by water and have limited real estate here.
@ Diane Bentivegna:
You write:
“it is important to note that he is also the President and CEO of FloMartin Securities, which specializes in, among other areas, real estate offerings and ‘other specialized investments.”
With all due respect to your internet sleuthing, I’m afraid your deductive reasoning skills could use some sharpening. The real estate investments offered by my firm are chiefly publicly traded REITs, which would have absolutely no bearing on any development on Long Island except by accident. So much for attempting to prove MY selfishness.
In response to Ms. Stevenson, a property near a transit corridor, or public transportation, is more desirable than one without. It’s why my first apartment was within walking distance of Great Neck station. Thirty minutes to Midtown. Pretty good selling point.
ALL of these responses, which I find shrill and hyper reactive, miss the point. You may think you’re “preserving” something, but again anyone in the past 300 years could make the same claim. The question is what gives ANYONE the right to say “we’re done” and how would YOU feel if the door was slammed on YOU?
You’re not “preserving,” you’re actually CREATING a far bigger economic problem by voting down any more construction.
To give you an idea the absurd lengths people take this to, a FOURTEEN unit apartment building proposed in the CITY OF GLEN COVE, was defeated by the NIMBY residents, and again, for the same preposterous logic: “noise and traffic.”
Like it or not, we don’t own Long Island, we only have a small piece of it for the time we decide to leave, or die. There are bigger ramifications for our community at large you folks may want to focus on. And they are key to the viability of Long Island and it’s future. In other words, it’s not about you.
Sorry.