Sustainable
Port Washington Peninsula - Phase 1 Study
Executive Summary
Note
this executive summary was reprinted with the permission of Residents
and Land Ethics, Inc.
The
Executive Summary Includes
What is Sustainability?
Project Background
What Are the Implications of Future Growth on
the Quality of Life?
Evaluating the Four Sites
Dallas Realty
Lewis Oil
Thypin Steel
Morewood
Future Action
Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington, a 33 year-old Port Washington
based environmental non-profit group, began the Sustainable Port Washington
Peninsula Project in 1999 to study the best use for four remaining large
undeveloped parcels on the Peninsula. Residents hired Land Ethics, Inc.,
an Ann Arbor, Michigan based firm with a strong background in issues
of open space preservation and sustainable growth issues, to conduct
the initial phase of the Sustainable Port Washington Peninsula Project,
identifying implications of future growth on the quality of life within
the Port Washington Peninsula, planning for the best future use of four
open space sites on the Peninsula, assessing the groundwater requirements
for the Morewood-Harbor Ridge development and working towards securing
funding for open space acquisition within the Peninsula. (top
of page)
What
is Sustainability?
Creating
a sustainable environment involves balancing social needs such as affordable
housing, transportation, business and recreation opportunities with
environmental needs such as reducing demand on the Peninsula's drinking
water sources to ensure long term fresh water availability. The concept
of sustainability comes from a desire to identify the human issues that
impact the quality of life for local residents and the extent to which
the natural systems can support human activity.
Preservation
of open space plays a vital role in sustaining a high quality of life.
As the Port Washington region has developed, open space has been converted
into residential, industrial and commercial space, placing a premium
on the few remaining undeveloped open space parcels. These undeveloped
lands become more valuable as the surrounding area continues to grow
because they provide local recreation opportunities as well as preforming
important ecological roles. Therefore, an assessment of the implications
of future growth must consider the value of open space in anticipating
quality of life concerns on the Peninsula. (top
of page)
Project
Background
Phase
1 of the Sustainable Port Washington Peninsula Project began with an
inventory and analysis of existing open space and recreation facilities
on the Port Washington Peninsula. Land Ethics conducted the site analyses
during a series of visits between June, 1999 and March, 2000. During
this time frame, Land Ethics, with assistance from Residents, also conducted
two public workshops that included local elected officials and municipal
staff, county officials, non-profit agencies and local citizens. These
workshops asked participants to detail their visions for the future
of the Port Washington Peninsula and then, with participants broken
down into small working groups, identified the most critical areas of
land for preservation on the Peninsula, how parks and open spaces might
connect with pedestrian safe trails and how existing recreational facilities
could be improved to meet community needs. (top
of page)
What
Are the Implications of Future Growth on the Quality of Life?
Future
growth on the Peninsula - new residential, commercial and industrial
development - comes at a price. New development has certain impacts
upon an area, impacts ranging from increased traffic to increased groundwater
demand to reduced water quality to substandard amounts of local recreation
facilities. Unsustainable development results in detrimental impacts
on quality of life issues. Sustainable development is able to balance
the costs of the new development, such as increased levels of impervious
surface or added demand for groundwater with local benefits such as
creating alternative modes of transportation or diversifying the local
tax base.
Undeveloped
land on the Port Washington Peninsula is a scarce commodity and thus,
is in high demand for development. While the tax benefits of adding
new industrial and commercial development are appealing to local governments,
it is important to also evaluate undeveloped land for its value as an
open space amenity within the community. Any proposed new development
must be considered within the context of sustainability and quality
of life. In order to create a sustainable community, it is essential
to weigh the trade-offs involved in each and every development proposal
before approving any new development. (top
of page)
Evaluating
the Four Sites
Evaluating
development proposals based on impacts to the quality of life is particularly
important on the Port Washington Peninsula based on the availability
of four large undeveloped parcels - the Dallas Realty and Lewis Oil
properties in the Village of Port Washington North, the Thypin Steel
property in the Village of Manorhaven and the Morewood site in unincorporated
Port Washington. Each site is currently the focus of proposed development,
however, in the process of evaluating the costs and benefits of development
on each site, the value of each as recreational open space and its environmental
issues has not been adequately considered. Examining the regional context
of development on the Peninsula, it becomes easier to calculate the
value of each site in the context of developing a sustainable Port Washington
Peninsula. (top of page)
In
order to fully evaluate the value of each site as recreational open
space, it is necessary to examine the amount of existing public open
space in each community on the Peninsula. Examining the local recreation
facilities within each community on the Peninsula inventories the amount
of public open space in each community and compares it to the National
Park and Recreation Association (NPRA) standards for local recreation
requirements to determine the amount of open space needed in each community
to ensure quality of life is preserved. Parks and recreation spaces
are considered necessary infrastructure for communities. The NPRA is
the organization that establishes the minimum level of service for park
and recreation facilities.
Each
of the four sites is then evaluated based on the need for local recreation
space in each community, the community costs and benefits of residential,
industrial or commercial development on each site as well as the community's
desire for each site. (top of page)
Dallas
Realty
The
Village of Port Washington North needs an additional 20 acres of local
parkland to meet the NPRA of 9.6 acres of local parks for every 1,000
residents, which reflects the need for 27 acres of local parkland for
the current population of 2,708. Preserving half of the 40 acre Dallas
Realty land as local park facilities allows Port Washington North to
meet the NPRA standards. The recommendation for the Dallas Realty site
is that any development proposal permanently dedicate at least half
of the 40.9 acres for local parkland. (top
of page)
Lewis
Oil
This
site, also within the Village of Port Washington North, actually consists
of two properties, one on the east side of Shore Road and the other,
smaller piece directly on the Manhasset Bay waterfront, west of Shore
Road. The larger site, east of Shore Road is targeted for redevelopment
as an extension of the existing Delco Shopping plaza. Complicating future
redevelopment of this site is the high probability of required environmental
clean up resulting from decades of use as an oil storage facility, making
mixed-use and residential development on the site improbable. The local
tax benefits of expanding commercial strip development on the Manhasset
Bay waterfront come at the cost of increasing the amount of impervious
surface directly adjacent to the waterfront and increasing traffic along
the already very heavily used Shore Road. Expanded retail or light industrial
redevelopment is appropriate for the larger Lewis Oil property, provided
the waterfront parcel is preserved as publically accessible park land
and a greenway or publically accessible trail can be created through
the larger parcel that would link the Dallas Realty site to Residents
Shoreline to Shoreline Greenway Trail. (top
of page)
Thypin
Steel
The 11 acre site is located on the largely residential Manhasset Isle
and is the subject of a residential development proposal that is now
before the Village of Manorhaven. Residential development is in keeping
with the residential character of the island and offers the possibility
in the design of the site plan to create additional housing while preserving
public access to the Manhasset Bay waterfront. Furthermore, the site
has important historic significance within the community as the location
of the former site of the Pan Am Clipper hangars that predate LaGuardia
Airport. The recommendation for the Thypin Steel site is for residential
development that maintains public access to the Manhasset Bay. (top
of page)
Morewood
The Morewood senior housing development, Harbor Ridge, is part of the
larger Harbor Links golf course project on the east side of the Peninsula
in the unincorporated portion of Port Washington. The senior housing
proposal encompasses 42 acres within the 458 acre Harbor Links/Harbor
Ridge development and includes 675 new units with approximately 1,270
new residents. The principal concern with the development, as it was
originally approved, is the groundwater demand associated with 1,270
new residents. The state of New York sets groundwater usage limits for
each water district and these caps led the Port Washington Water District
to revise their estimates to commit only 20 million gallons of water
per year to the Harbor Ridge development. Based on this revision, the
Harbor Ridge development is allotted 54,000 gallons of water a day,
which is enough to accommodate only 540 new residents, less than half
the number proposed. The recommendation for the size and scope of the
Morewood development is to limit the development to no more than 540
new residents and preserve the remainder of the site as non-golf course
open space to ensure future groundwater availability on the Peninsula.
(top of page)
Future Action
The
next step in developing a sustainable Port Washington Peninsula is to
develop a regional coordinating governmental organization that oversees
political and land use decisions and provides the guidance to municipal
governments to make land use decisions with regional issues in mind.
Such an organization will develop a dialogue between local governments,
state and county agencies and local citizens to assess issues of growth
and quality of life on a regional rather than local basis so that a
new development with 1,000 new residents, for example, will be evaluated
for the cumulative regional impacts of that development rather than
limiting the review to immediate local impacts. Residents will continue
to play a crucial role in the development of a sustainable Port Washington
Peninsula, securing funding for future open space acquisition, creating
and maintaining regional partnerships and coalitions and publicizing
the importance of open space preservation.
Neither
the local governments nor Residents alone is able to purchase any of
the four large undeveloped properties for open space preservation. Therefore,
it is essential that all concerned focus on creating partnerships that
pursue alternative funding sources such as the Land and Water Conservation
Fund, Clean Air/Clean Water fund or other public and private sources
to buy the open space and to work with the Town of North Hempstead to
ensure the passage of the Town open space acquisition bond issue in
November. (top of page)
The
Port North Civic Association Thanks Residents for allowing us to publish
this executive summary here. To
go to Residents web site click here
