Bravo to Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender for winning her second Vision Long Island Smart Growth Award for the village. Mayor Celender received the Transportation Choices award for the Plaza’s Transit-Oriented Development Zoning for its “B” Business District. The plan encompasses mixed-use and infill development to build new housing in the downtown.
The Plaza is on the forefront of an important trend: downtowns that are livable, workable, walkable, and that connect to mass transit – and is a model for why local government and local control are so important (more on that to follow).
“This encourages development of an appropriate scale with flexible design standards, to bring in new residents, add vitality and provide much needed rental housing to retain young people, who are leaving Long Island at rates we cannot sustain,” Mayor Celender said in accepting the award from Vision Long Island on June 15, surrounded by the village trustees. “We need to find ways to keep young people here.
“This development isn’t changing the character of our village, but allows us to do more – where people can meet and come together,” she said.
The village engaged in a planning process to study its outdated “B” Business District zoning beginning in the fall of 2009, meeting with stakeholders including property owners, developers and the business community, and hosting several public meetings. Cameron Engineering assisted by analyzing the downtown’s needs. The zone change was adopted by the village trustees in June 2011 – just a year ago.
The Transit-Oriented Development zoning will encourage mixed use, mixed income development, especially affordable rental housing aimed at enabling young people to live here. It will promote in-fill development over stores, many of which are one or two stories. It will add vibrancy to the street as new residents utilize shops and eateries and access mass transit without needing a drive.
The trend in reviving villages like the Plaza, which have downtowns and have access to mass transit, is to allow one and two-story buildings to add more stories in the Transit-Oriented Development zoning, and allow those that are already higher to convert existing space, primarily offices, to residential (which is called “mixed use”). A prime candidate building is 11 Middle Neck Road, a prime property which has been designated historical and significant, the Mayor says.
We suggest that another prime candidate is that unattractive building at the corner of Middle Neck Road and south station where hair salon was, to which Mayor Celender replied. “This property owner’s architect has met with me to discuss its additional development potential and investing, at a minimum, to upgrade the existing facades, as well as adding more square footage above the first-floor retail to reinvigorate this strip of retail stores.”
How is this zoning different from what the village had before? “We haven’t focused on the B business district for several decades, except for adding new permitted uses in the business district when Bob Rosegarten was mayor,” Celender said. “This is the first time we took a comprehensive review to incorporate new zoning to assist downtown retail property owners and revitalize the village, in light of this downturn in the economy. We began this process over two years ago. Much of what we had previously focused on in the past revisions to our Village Code was the C-2 zoning district (aligning the railroad tracks).
The village drafted it based on what we were looking to encourage in terms of new development.
“This is about a vision for downtown Great Neck Plaza,” Celender says, “one that is a revival, and provides for new residents and allows property owners to attract new merchants.”
This, she explains, “is because more development and different uses will add value to their property and help reduce the burden of increasing property taxes, mostly from other taxing jurisdictions than the village, which hasn’t raised our tax rate for 5 years.”
She adds, “It allows people back to live above stores (in 1980s it wasn’t a positive use, but times have changed) and we believe we will have the proper controls to ensure it will now be attractive to young professionals and people who will be able to find everything they need here without owning a car.We believe that our new TOD zoning for the B business district is cutting edge for Long Island. Several property owners are currently exploring design schemes to come forward with dynamic projects in the downtown for the Plaza.”
Flexibility is key to sustainability, and Mayor Celender explains what that means: “We have adopted more form-based zoning to ensure that a proposed development project has flexibility in its design and layout. Depending on the architectural design, we can vary height and other provisions accordingly. We want a proposed development to be attractive; not just a square box or facade built above the first floor retail, but with architectural style, a high quality of design, using quality materials that add value to the aesthetics of downtown buildings, and is an appropriate TOD that furthers our goals of economic revitalization and sustainable development.”
Rather than give over to unrestrained development, the village is able to maintain the “aesthetics” and character of the village through its power over issuing the “conditional use” permits.
“The challenge is placed on the property owner to present to us an innovate design and layout incorporating the goals of TOD zoning, yet compatible and in keeping with the existing charm and character of the village and surrounding properties.”
The first project under this zoning is the Lalezarian Building, 245-265 Great Neck Road.
In conjunction with this project (and under the Plaza’s first-on-the-peninsula Affordable Housing legislation), it will have 19 affordable or “workforce housing” rental units.
Within the next several weeks, the Village of Great Neck Plaza will be announcing the process for applying for these affordable housing units.
“At our Board of Trustees meeting last night (June 20) we adopted a local law to modify our Affordable Housing law adopted in December 2005 to reflect this new building coming on line and to incorporate some of the procedures for filling these rental units.”
The mayor says “stay tuned,” to learn whether selection will be based on first-come or is there a lottery or what system, or some other system.
The Plaza, which has proved to be ingenious in its ability to earn federal and state grants, has not yet received grants related to Affordable Housing legislation, although the village (never missing an opportunity) has applied for several grants to assist with public education and outreach. (The mayor replied tour questions after 9 pm, writing earlier in the day, “Been a tough day getting an urban forestry grant out to the DEC.”)
The Plaza hopes to use the Transit-Oriented Development zone to obtain outside grants for downtown revitalization, including qualifying for the New York State Main Street Program, which would leverage private investment.
“The TOD zoning is about establishing a vision for downtown Great Neck Plaza, a vision that sparks a revival, brings in new residents, attracts new merchants, is attractive to young professionals, reduces sprawl and auto-dependence and builds upon the charming character of the Village that people love,” Celender said.
New Threat to Local Control?
What is happening in the Plaza is one of the best examples of local government – and local control – and exemplifies the essence of what Long Island Vision has been working toward: smart growth and sustainable development.
Yet New York State and Nassau County have not always appreciated the value of local control. (Everyone in Great Neck is breathing sighs of relief that we did not cave in to massive pressure to close, rather than rebuild our sewage treatment plants and link up with Nassau County).
It is comparable to the way politicians always talk in sentimental tones about “small business” when they do everything possible to rig the game in favor of big business.
Government officials at higher levels have portrayed (scapegoated, really) local government as wasteful and inefficient, rather than appreciate local government as laboratories for innovation (like small business!), efficient deliverers of services to constituents, and the level of government most responsive to local needs.
In just the last campaign for Governor, both Republicans and Democrats were zeroing in on consolidation of local governments as the best path to address government spending. And let’s not forget that Cuomo, as the state’s Attorney General, wrote the legislation that makes it easier to dissolve or consolidate local governments.
So I took with some irony the fact that Lt. Governor Robert L. Duffy, who was honored at the same function by Vision Long Island for his Regional Leadership heading the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council (as he does all 10 of the Cuomo-created regional councils), was at the heart of an issue that could become the next battleground to topple local control.
But it was at Vision Long Island’s Small Business Summit in April where I learned of what might be the next effort by state government to overturn local control.
Indeed, local governments are bracing for what may be the latest, most vigorous attack on local control since the state adopted its consolidation law that makes it much, much easier to dissolve villages and special districts. And they already have allies in the state Legislature who are prepared to meet the challenge.
What set the stage for a showdown was a proposed shopping mall in the Town of Oyster Bay, advanced by Taubman, a real estate developer. The proposal goes back to 1988, but it was only put in front of the town for SEQRA in 2001. The town used its authority as lead agency in the environmental review process to object to the density and scale of the project. Taubman wasn’t happy and the matter was in court until 2009, when the court said that if Taubman wanted a shopping mall, it had to refine the plans to be satisfactory with the town.
Instead of doing that, Taubman felt it had a new ally: the newly created Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, one of 10 that Cuomo created throughout the state to spearhead economic development, which is headed by Duffy.
The regional council wanted to take over authority for SEQRA, which would have established a really terrible precedent.
Long Island village officials associations lobbied Duffy, who serves as the chief executive of each of the 10 regional economic planning councils, including Long Island’s.
So far, probably more because the economics of the project have changed, than any reinforcement of the principle of local control over environmental review, Taubman has not pushed, so the matter has stalemated, at least for now.
But if a locality’s authority over SEQRA is removed, that would end a critical source of power for a community’s control over its existence.
Who has authority over SEQRA could prove crucial if – and when – Cuomo decides to go forward with hydrofracking.
Right now, in the few cases that have been brought to court, localities have been mostly successful in denying permits to companies which want to impose hydrofracking. But that could change because of the preference that federal law gives to energy companies. Which is why the Governor’s position in terms of promoting fracking or blocking it, could be so crucial.
If Cuomo decides that fracking is in the interest of the state’s economic development (or just his own political advancement, such as with casino gambling), he can maneuver to give the state’s regional economic development planning councils the authority to make the SEQRA determination, rather than localities.
(The grand compromise that Cuomo seems to be gravitating towards with hydrofracking, as leaked to the New York Times, would suggest that he would confine hydrofracking to the most persistently economically depressed areas in the Southern Tier, and only in those localities which approve.)
Nonetheless, under the banner of “regional economic development,” local governments are fearful that Cuomo will introduce his own legislation giving the state the role of lead agency in SEQRA.
The issue of local control has loomed large in several different contexts: in addition to this critical matter of localities’ ability of localities to bar access to oil and gas companies seeking to exploit hydrofracking, there is also how state education policy, combined with state-imposed budget constraints, that erodes local school districts’ ability to make its own education decisions, even for districts like Great Neck, defined as “exemplary” (see 6/22 column); the ability of localities to stop over-development by tax-exempt institutions when are claimed as religious purpose (see 3/2 column), which may derive from federal law, but localities should have the ability to regulate to protect the environment and health and safety of community, and assess property taxes or payments in lieu of taxes.
The state, in its infinite wisdom, might even decide that what your community really needs for its economic future is casino gambling, or a shopping mall, when a town says such purposes will harm the local community.
That is what prompted an unusual action on the part of the State Legislature (and our own state Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel), to propose legislation establishing the presumptive authority of localities in the SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) process.
The legislation has been introduced by Schimel in the Assembly and Carl Marcellino in the Senate, but has not been acted upon. It is there just in case Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has made his contempt for local government clear, advances his own legislation which would remove the authority for SEQRA from local government control to regional and state entities.
Schimel’s bill states: “Lead Agency: the lead agency shall be a local agency when the anticipated impacts of an action are primarily of regional or local significance.”
The state Legislature is hesitant to act preemptively – which is why the legislation has not been acted upon. But they want the Governor to know that they are ready.
Meanwhile, we applaud the others who were honored at the 11th Annual Long Island Vision Smart Growth Awards: state Sen. Charles Fuschillo and Sandi Vega for the NYS Complete Streets law, Dolores Thompson of the Huntington Station Enrichment Center, David Schieren of EmPower Solar, Metro 303 in Hempstead by Mill Creek Residential Trust, The Riverwalk in Patchogue by GRB Development Corp., Water Mill Station by Koral Bros., The Paramount in Huntington, Bartone Hotel and Mixed Use in Farmingdale by Bartone Properties and BWC Realty Partners, and the Elmont Mixed-Use Zoning District in the Town of Hempstead.
