Previously Published in The Messenger
“Development” is often a word that stokes a lot of fear, uncertainty, and disdain. We haven’t seen communities become divided over much else, and if there’s anything to stoke distrust of local elected officials, it’s development overall.
But development doesn’t have to be scary, nor does it imply that elected officials have the communities’ worst interest in mind.
Moreover, Suffolk County finds itself at a significant turning point. Net migration has given New York State the fastest declining population in the country over the last couple years, affordability has created a “brain drain” that makes leaving Long Island behind a more attractive alternative than sticking it out, and many wish for the characters of communities to remain forever unaltered, for better or for worse.
We understand the want to be the last house on the block and we understand that development must be done in a way that preserves communities’ characters. But at the same time, Suffolk is going through growing pains that the rest of the country is experiencing.
The current era has brought everyone and everything online – to a chronic point. E-commerce, while it has its strong suits, is proving to be an interminable and unquenchable force against small business. Before Amazon and the other titans of the industry, it was shopping malls. Before the malls, it was the big box stores. Mom and pop shops have unfortunately long been on the chopping block, and with every aspect of life being run on a tight budget nowadays, who can afford to even spend outside of necessity?
It’s why our downtowns have become ghost towns in some parts of the county, but development is also why some of them are roaring back to life to varying degrees.
Bay Shore and Patchogue have made impressive metamorphoses, going from blighted downtowns to thriving main streets. In St. James, sewers and collaborative efforts have turned a sleepy main street into a quaint, walkable downtown that retains the hamlet’s historic and rural feel. Kings Park and Smithtown are on the precipices of their own overhauls, while the County and State continue to fund projects across the county.
Mastic Beach is no exception, with the ambitious Neighborhood Road Revitalization Area seeking to take one of the most problematic and crime-ridden parts of Suffolk into a beachy downtown that aims to breathe new life into the Tri-Hamlet Peninsula.
What we’ve seen in Mastic Beach differs from what we’ve seen elsewhere: most of the community is largely in favor of it.
Sure, there are those who oppose it, but on mostly reasonable grounds. They cite current crime statistics, lack of a police substation, and consternation over possible invocations of eminent domain as problems that should be solved first. However, even those critiques are often accompanied by an open-mindedness to the initiative. Traffic remains the biggest common denominator amongst those who largely oppose the project.
Even so, it’s a respectful conversation that’s not wrought with mudslinging and elbow throwing. It’s refreshing to see a community not only so on board with an overhaul plan, but also one that can hash out the points of disagreement.
Being the last house on the block is a feeling we’d all wish to have, but it’s simply not realistic when the world is changing faster than our downtowns can keep up with it. If we don’t risk any development, we take the much larger risk of letting our communities further hollow out to the point that we’re based on online commerce alone and our downtowns continue to be boarded up and offering only low-level commercial storefronts, such as smoke shops and dollar stores.
The housing stock must also be treated from a more fiscally conservative supply-and-demand outlook. First-time homebuyer programs sound good and might be successful with a very modest approach, but it ultimately breeds more inflation and doesn’t solve the primary issue: supply. It’s not about bringing new people onto Long Island; it’s about opening pathways to retain population.
While development can be a touchy subject and not everyone will always be happy, we recommend taking notes from the people of Mastic Beach, who can embrace an ambitious plan for their beloved hamlet to take a complete 180 while also voicing reasonable concerns in a realistic way.