The Manorhaven Action Committee’s Citizens Advisory Waterfront Workgroup will be gathering Wednesday, Sept. 7 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Port Washington Library.
Hagedorn Room to gather additional issues from the public to be offered to the Mayor’s/ Village Board’s Waterfront Committee, when they discuss possible changes to the waterfront zoning laws, which may lead to replacing marinas with condos if nothing substantive is done to guide mixed-use development along the shoreline.
MAC citizens have reached out to a powerful partner, who is helping us to protect the waterfront.
The state Department of State’s Coastal Management Program, through the implementation of the proposed Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, has been shepherding the process from Albany.
Some questions from our Work Group currently include:
What will the local tax burden be on Manorhaven residents from future condo developments?
Additional infrastructure and services, (roads, sewers, schools, fire, ambulance and police) will be needed with an increased population (as many as 90 new families could be added on the 11-acre Thypin Steel property alone).
It has been estimated that digging up and replacing the asbestos lined sewer pipes, and repaving the roads above them, could cost $250,000 per block.
Has money been identified in the budget to pay for a consulting firm?
They would need to research the village demographics (much of this was written 20 years ago when a previous LWRP failed to win trustee support, at the last minute, immediately following an election), write the necessary planning documents, and hold public hearings in order to take the process step-by-step from vision to implementation.
There are grants available which can fully pay for it, but the Village needs to submit the paperwork.
What Emergency Management Plan would deal with flood evacuation over the narrow Manhasset Isle causeway?
How would the sick and elderly get off the island with water over the road and trees down on electric wires, in the event of a massive storm surge which is illustrated by www.coreLogic.com in their “2016 Storm Surge Risk Report” (register as a planner to see that all our waterfront is in the red zone.)
This week is the anniversary of Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Why does Manorhaven need an Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan?
How is it different from the informal Waterways Committee the village has had for years?
The easy answer is that it is much more comprehensive and well structured.
It gives the village teeth when they reject unwise zoning requests.
A new Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan would be backed by The Department of State, and their lawyers would defend the Village in a lawsuit.
The harder answer is that such a plan would help limit the pressure from runaway growth now experienced by the Village of Manorhaven.
It could control both challenges on the harbor and on land.
It could guarantee access to the waterfront for the residents, keep taxes relatively stable and maintain the sense of maritime history, which makes this community so special.
Time is running out.
We have been told that the Village Board’s Waterfront meetings will be open to the public, but no dates have yet been announced.
The six-month waterfront building moratorium will expire in January 2017, and if the village has not started working on the plan, then the opportunity will be lost and the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan will die.
Even with a Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan in the works, the waterfront building moratorium will have to be extended until the plan is finished, which could take years.
To do nothing is not only irresponsible, it leaves the future of the waterfront in the hands of developers and hurricanes.
As Robert Moses once said “The only way to predict the future is to plan for it.”
Please come to the discussion on Wednesday, Sept. 7.
Caroline S. DuBois
Acting Secretary,
Manorhaven Action Committee
Readers Write: Questions about Manorhaven’s future
