Even In Defeat, Hochul Housing Proposal Raises Questions

Nassau will still need to address the issue of development

aolsen@antonmediagroup.com

While the housing portion of the New York State budget seems to be tabled for now, housing and urban planning are ongoing issues. According to the Regional Plan Association, a non-profit organization that does research, planning, and advocacy for transportation, housing, planning and environmental issues in the tristate area, New York State will need to build over 800,000 housing units during the next ten years to address current needs and meet expected population and job growth. People need places to reside, and it’s generally better if they are able to do so near the places where they spend the rest of their time- their places of employment, schools, retail and recreation. Careful planning can result in settings that are beneficial to residents, the community, and the environment.

“(Locating) your doctor, your lawyer, where you get your groceries, fresh food, all within walking distance or within a short commute has been a planning principle for a long while. It does have a number of positive effects in terms of the livelihood of a neighborhood; the livelihood of a place makes it more attractive, it also can lead to a positive effect on property values. It also has a net effect on congestion because people don’t have to drive a couple miles just to get a quart of milk or whatever. They can do that if they can just walk a few blocks and not having to get into their car,” said Marcel Negret, Senior Planner at the RPA.

When people think of compact or high-density housing, they often think of examples like tall skyscrapers. Frequently, though, housing can be added through the application of adaptive use. This is where existing structures are modified. Examples include where a lower story has commercial space, like a store or restaurant, while the upper stories are housing units. These are sometimes called “middle density,” a unit of housing that is often missing in many parts of Long Island. “So, there’s something in between the large, high rise, multifamily buildings, a skyscraper, and low density, single family residential neighborhoods, with the detached units. There’s a lot in between. Mixed use buildings that have like some form of commercial use on the first floor, maybe two, three stories above with residential, that would fit the description of kind of middle density, that in many cases is kind of just missing because we either have one extreme or the other,” said Negret.

There is also potential for these mixed-use buildings to plan their utilities and HVAC systems in a more environmentally sound way, rather than retrofitting them later. There is even the possibility of growing food and managing stormwater runoff. “The category of mixed uses shouldn’t be limited to just combining commercial retail and residential, but also have other more functional, utility led uses like solar panels. In places where you have issues with managing stormwater runoff, you also can retrofit some of those spaces with some form of a green roof that captures some of that water and helps manage some of the limitations with our sewer infrastructure, for example. This idea of mixed uses probably fits that description as well,” Negret said, when discussing how these mixed-use buildings fit into a more sustainable way of developing.

One of the biggest benefits of more carefully planned, compact development is the preservation of forests and open space. Since 2001, New York State has lost over 68,000 acres of forest land, with 94 perecnt of the lost forest (64,000 acres) attributed to sprawl, according to the National Land Cover database. Building in areas that are already urbanized, called “in-fill” development, is one solution to take pressure off undeveloped land. Negret puts it this way: “One of the other great benefits of favoring this type of planning of more compact, mixed uses clustered together is the preservation of natural areas, of forest land, of watersheds. You’re meeting those needs in this more efficient form of urban clusters or suburban villages. In the context of Long Island, it mitigates or reduces kind of pressure for sprawling out and consuming existing open space or forest land or polluting watersheds.”

Even though most of the sprawl happened in the mid part of the of the last century, with the explosion of highways and car ownership, it has continued into the present day. “We looked at those kinds of consumption rates from forest land in the past 20 years, and they’re still concerning. It’s not something that has gone away, even though planners have realized that they want to shift gears to more compact forms of development. Unfortunately, sprawl is still happening and we’re losing forest land because of that,” said Negret. “Over the past two decades Nassau County has lost over 1,100 acres of forest land to sprawl, an area larger than all of Eisenhower Park. Promoting more compact forms of housing development in the region, and in our suburbs in particular, is a smart way to advance land conservation goals and preventing future loss of forest land and open space.”

Proactive planning allows communities to make decisions collectively about how their community develops. Without direction, the development still happens, but it isn’t as organized or deliberate. Negret points out that the default ends up being sprawl. “If there’s no proactive effort to prioritize these forms of more compact forms of development, that have mixed uses, that favor adaptive reuse, the default is you will have sprawl. Like the inaction or lack of proactivity in implemented planning ideas just will result in sprawl. So regardless of who is taking the lead, there is definitely a need for action.”