LONG ISLAND 2020:
A Greenprint For A Sustainable Long Island

A DRAFT PLAN
PREPARED BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE OF LONG ISLAND
BY THE LONG ISLAND PROGRESSIVE COALITION
AN AFFILIATE OF CITIZEN ACTION OF NEW YORK
in cooperation with the Research and Education Project of Long Island (REP-LI)

Executive Summary

Radical changes are now taking place in the United States and world economy that make it impossible to continue with "business as usual." Traditional development strategies no longer work. For Long Islanders, the evidence is all around us: the erosion of manufacturing; the disappearance of Grumman and the radical downsizing of the defense industry; proliferating empty stores and abandoned shopping malls; intolerable traffic congestion along with expanded road construction; the contamination of our water, land, air, and beaches; the loss of agricultural land and open space to unplanned growth; and expanding under- and un-employment, with continuing threats to decent, well-paying jobs. Thus our standard of living and quality of life decline, with increasing taxes and utility rates, diminished social and human services, blighted communities, more serious crime and expanded drug use, and decreasing access to quality affordable medical care.

It should be clear that we must significantly alter our development priorities or condemn this Island to a not so slow and painless death -- both economically and environmentally. We can no longer continue to try to "grow" our way out of our problems. Continual growth is not possible within a finite area, only producing an ever increasing amount of polluting "side effects". Nor can we continue to trust that an essentially unregulated world market will provide for our well-being. Rather we must replace an unthinking support of quantitative growth with a careful promotion of qualitative development. Long Island is now suffering at least as much from the wrong kind of development as from not enough development -- with too many malls, roads, congestion, and waste products. The traditional commitment to quantitative growth overtaxes the environmental carrying capacity of our region, undermining its long-term viability. Similarly, the single-minded commitment to profit maximization, with prices not including social and ecological costs, leads to unsustainable use of the land and its resources, while commitment to free trade drives down standards and destroys communities. Instead, we must place constraints on the activities of the supposedly "free market" if we are to insure that its decisions promote ecologically sound and sustainable economic development. Drawing, for example, upon models from Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, among others, "urban growth boundaries" need to be designated -- especially in eastern Suffolk County -- specifying where "development" must cease and open space be preserved.

Sustainable development thus requires a redefinition of the concepts of economic growth, economic development and economic wealth. It means promoting policies designed to restore and preserve our quality of life by replenishing resources as they are consumed. We can no longer afford to counterpose economic development and jobs to the health of our communities and natural ecology. The economic health of Long Island must be built upon and draw its strength from -- rather than in opposition to and at the expense of -- our environment. Either our economy and environment will prosper together, or they will deteriorate separately. The key to such development is the revitalization of Long Island's communities. We must put an end to the "mega-malling" of Long Island, rebuilding villages and hamlets that are economically vibrant, culturally alive, and socially equitable. This cannot happen without an effective expansion of democratic processes and community empowerment.

To these ends, we must control land use, preserve agriculture and open space, refocus and cluster industrial and commercial development into downtowns and abandoned industrial areas, and develop an ecologically sensitive vision and program that draws upon and enhances the Island's strengths rather than reproducing the disasters of elsewhere. Non-renewable resources have to be carefully husbanded and, where possible, substituted by renewable ones. Landfills for incinerated or non-incinerated waste should be minimized by a combination of recycling (including processes such as pelletization) and reductions in waste generation. The water supply can be protected by gradually expanding the catchment area through reforestation, and by preventing additional pollutants from entering the aquifers. Reforestation can be accomplished through real estate development which clusters development around downtown areas, favors apartments over single family homes, and expands the acreage under public control. Clustering also permits more efficient use of public transportation and encourages non-polluting transportation such as bicycling and walking. Substituting solar, wind, tidal, and other renewable, less-polluting energy sources for fossil fuels is yet another way to encourage a sustainable environment and economy.

Development must avoid the "suburban sprawl" characterized by "strip malls" lining such routes as Jericho Turnpike and the "110 Corridor". Industrial parks and commercial centers should be clustered next to, not strung out along, major highways, and where appropriate, rail centers. "Downtowns" need to be revitalized; where feasible, office buildings and retail stores should be situated in the center of villages, interspersed with and surrounded by clustered residential areas. Residential areas need to provide sufficient population density to sustain local retail activity, thus making pedestrian shopping and public transportation meaningful options.

We must stabilize the human population by discouraging further mass development, balance the rights of landowners with their responsibilities to their neighbors, their community, society, other species, nature, and future generations, foster compact development in ecologically suitable areas, preserve and enhance the quality of Long Island's surface waters, groundwater and associated marine waters through strict non-degradation policies, and provide recreational access to public lands and waters where this is consistent with conservation goals.

More specifically, we must institute an immediate freeze on developments that fragment the remaining Pine Barrens and other large natural areas, undertake a comprehensive ecological and economic analysis of Long Island in order to identify areas where protection would most effectively maintain biodiversity and areas that are most suitable for further development. We need coordinated, comprehensive, focused and enlightened efforts to create hamlet-centered landscapes with clustered, elegant, pedestrian-dominated and solar-powered housing.

We must, for example, promote those activities that have made the East End such a treasure: agriculture, mariculture, viticulture and tourism. Local agriculture, for example, burdened by an archaic and expensive distribution system that requires Long Island producers to ship their produce long distances to sell locally, can be dramatically bolstered by more farmers' market throughout the Metro region (so successful in Massachusetts). Sustainable production techniques, such as integrated pest-management, can further reduce costs and pesticide use. The resulting improvement in quality, freshness, and diversity will allow for more successful competition with producers from outside Long Island within the local market. Meanwhile, creative land use programs -- including land trusts, conservation easements, land banks, and transfers of development rights -- can productively preserve remaining open space. More generally, we must halt further efforts to expand the Long Island Expressway -- putting a freeze on practically all additional new road construction or widening; stop plans to build a high speed cargo ferry at Shoreham or a bridge to Connecticut; oppose significant industrial development east of MacArthur Airport, including at Calverton airport; and halt construction of a mega-mall at the intersection of the William Floyd Parkway and the Long Island Expressway (LIE).

A sustainable transportation system must follow an Island wide land use plan. We must not only place a moratorium on any further road expansion or new road construction, but dramatically augment our reliance on public transportation, especially railroads, and less-polluting private transport. There must be support for "interconnectedness" among rail, air, shipping, and auto transport -- as recently proposed by the Regional Plan Association -- with rail lines extended beyond Kennedy airport to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which needs to be used for containerized shipping and rail freight, not incinerators. And we must vastly expand the capacity and facility of the rails to carry freight.

A sustainable Long Island will require ecologically sound economic development. With a future map of Long Island that permits buffers between residential and manufacturing facilities, it's conceivable that a widely diverse economy can still be maintained here. We need to promote industries that draw upon our specific resources: an educated and skilled work force; quality universities and research centers; excellent parks and beaches; precious ecology and natural beauty; the still high quality of much of our underground water supply (especially under the central Pine Barrens); fortunate location on the east coast within the New York Metropolitan Region; and an enhanceable high quality of life.

We must encourage that economic diversity by strengthening the education of our workforce, improving rail links for the transportation of goods, reducing energy costs through conservation and the use of renewables, enhancing the attractiveness of the environment, and sustaining a high quality of private and public life. And this means that appropriate levels of public expenditure must be maintained in order to make and keep the Island attractive.

Most critical is the promotion of businesses that are compatible with Long Island's environmental, cultural, educational, and economic strengths. The preservation of open space is closely linked with the rebuilding of deteriorated industrial and commercial centers (as the former Republic aviation facility and the local "downtowns" of Hempstead, Riverhead, or Bellport.) The present economic and environmental unattractiveness of such areas -- none of which, it should be noted, require constructing expensive infrastructure -- results in a bias which leads to open space development, rather than constructive and sustainable re-development.

Upgrading sewage treatment facilities, financed by the federal Clean Water Jobs Act, can clean up the Sound, revitalize coastal areas, and provide thousands of jobs. Carefully planned industrial theme parks, such as those devoted to recycling industries -- for which there is a growing market -- can make the Island a center of recycling technology. For example, pelletization plants can transform the Island's sewage waste into a valuable export due to its relative non-contamination.

Careful attention to the joint needs of economic development and environmental preservation can offer significant advantages. The still high quality of Pine Barrens drinking water might be bottled for export, or used by industries that require such high quality in production -- with a corresponding business incentive to preserve that invaluable resource. Other industries of particular strength for Long Island might include thin-film photovoltaics, wind-power generation, graphics animation and video-computer production, environmental tourism and recreation, retirement communities, sustainable agriculture, and consulting, research and development in environmental reprocessing and waste management, including the pelletization of sewage sludge.

We further recommend promotion by the New York Power Authority of the retrofitting of existing municipal buildings and facilities and an aggressive program to replace old, inefficient appliances in commercial and residential buildings. But we oppose current plans by the Long Island Power Authority to bailout LILCO. Instead, we offer a series of practical proposals on conservation and the use of renewables that will lower rates and reduce waste, without massive additional borrowing that will lock-in high rates for years to come.

Because waste management is the third most expensive governmental function after schools and roads, we propose an Integrated Solid Waste Management plan that includes reducing the amount of solid waste created, composting organic wastes, recycling, reusing, or pelletizing where possible, and disposing of household hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound way. We need to research and develop alternate methods for the collection and disposal of hazardous waste, promote the development of more permanent STOP (Stop Throwing Out Pollutants) facilities, promote the development of more permanent recycling facilities, educate and assist residents, businesses, institutions, and governments on source reduction of solid and hazardous wastes, give incentives to encourage government, residents, businesses, and institutions to purchase goods made of recyclable materials, work with the tourism industry and the local Chambers of Commerce to encourage "green tourism," work with the schools to encourage incorporation of reduction and recycling in primary and secondary education curricula, support proposed legislation that will reduce excess packaging, support methods that will insure accurate labeling of household products containing hazardous waste materials, and legislate for recyclable packaging -- with penalties for non-compliance.

Long Island has extraordinary natural resources -- Long Island Sound, the headlands and harbors of the North Shore, the beaches and bays on the south, and the plains, pine barrens, and estuaries in between. In order to protect these resources, we need to develop a comprehensive land use plan for the region with the force of law that focuses on preservation and sustainable development. Such a plan must set limits on different types of use and equitably distribute sitings within communities. To this end we propose the establishment of a Long Island Commission on Sustainable Development, modeled on the Cape Cod Commission. It must be broadly representative and, among other capacities, have the power to review and pass upon the environmental sustainability of all significant development projects before they are allowed to proceed.

Drawing on proposals of the Regional Plan Association, we suggest the following preliminary general guidelines for sustainability:

1. Reorient growth to centers, in housing, services, jobs, and recreation, allowing the most access to the most people. Redirect development away from agricultural and virgin land to the downtown areas of hamlets and villages, as well as to abandoned industrial areas.

2. Require that business, government, and consumers calculate the real costs and benefits -- including environmental costs and benefits -- of their actions.

3. Protect open space promptly, while targeting unused and under-used land in developed areas for reuse.

4. Connect lower income populations to jobs, services, and education that have been locating largely in low-density, suburban areas. Key strategies include recentralizing growth, working with neighborhood organizations to facilitate housing and employment for lower income residents, and systematic replication of successful social, educational, health, and public safety programs.

5. Protect and enhance the quality of community life and of public infrastructure, from roads to bridges to rail, due to their vital role in maintaining the Region's identity as a leading area for high-paying, high-skilled jobs.

6. Make government more responsive to citizens by reducing overlapping jurisdictions and special districts, and providing for more democratic and representative electoral and administrative processes.

In addition to promoting economic development that is ecologically sustainable, it is vital that we revitalize democratic community life. That will require among others the reinstitution of effective progressive taxation. Only thus can we ensure that adequate funds are equitably available for food, housing, health care, educational, community services, infrastructure, and the promotion of small business.

As an first step, we propose the elimination of New York State's energy gross receipts tax and the Nassau/Suffolk surcharges on the sales tax. In place of the latter we propose the implementation for local residents of a progressive surcharge on the State income tax.

On a more comprehensive level, we call for an immediate freeze on all proposals to further reduce income taxes in New York State. Then we need to reduce property taxes, with a corresponding shift to a more progressive state income tax. Additional options for raising revenue in a just and fair manner are also available through curbing corporate welfare. Ending the most unjustified of New York's many lucrative tax preferences could generate up to another $1 billion, thereby more than replacing revenue lost through repeal of the gross receipts tax.

Ultimately, nothing short of the restoration of effective progressivity at the federal level and the reintroduction of taxes that make large corporations pay their fair share can generate sufficient revenue for broad-scale community revitalization nationwide. Meanwhile the implementation of Green taxes -- that increase the costs of things we want to discourage, such as toxic waste, while reducing the costs of things we want to encourage, such as pollution control equipment -- can contribute to redirecting development in a more economically efficient and environmentally friendly direction.

Finally, it simply makes no sense to do what other plans for the Island have done, which is to pretend that we can act as if we are an island in every sense of the word, isolated from the rest of the world. Thus our draft plan begins with an overview of the world economy and Long Island's place within it. It is necessary to put our program into this larger perspective if it is to have any chance of implementation. We seek to develop a basic understanding of how the sustainable model for economic development must replace destructive models such as the unlimited-unrestricted growth model now being advocated.

In conclusion, this draft document now being presented publicly for first time is the result of a grassroots citizen effort of more than six years duration. It seeks to reframe the way the people of Long Island think about the problems and choices facing us. And it intends to begin a year-long process of public debate and discussion that will provide Long Islanders with a more hopeful future.

We recognize that this document is neither comprehensive nor satisfactorily detailed. For example, it does not yet adequately address, among others: demographic factors; the unequal distribution of wealth; race relations; quality education; labor market strategies; the delivery of social services; or the provision of services for youth. Nor does it speak in sufficient detail about the needs of specific neighborhoods, villages, or towns. In the months to come, we will offer opportunities both to critically refashion and practically complete the program here presented. In addition to continuing to meet with local community groups in homes, libraries, and churches across the Island, we are planning a series of public hearings in each Island town and city -- and several in the largest towns of Brookhaven and Hempstead. We invite local citizens to criticize our vision and practical proposals, as well as to provide us with detailed suggestions as to what such a plan should propose for their community.

The revised document that emerges from this truly representative and democratic process of community decision-making will then be presented to the Island's people and decision-makers for implementation. And it will become the manifesto of a revitalized movement of community empowerment and civic action that can truly make our Island a model for the nation and the world by the year 2020 and beyond. We invite the widest possible citizen participation in this process.