Carmans plan is really about development
View of the Carmans River near the site of a news conference. Supervisor Mark Lesko and leading environmentalists announce groundbreaking accord involving the Carmans River. Credit: Joseph D. Sullivan
The Town of Brookhaven's Carmans River Watershed Protection and Management Plan has received much attention in the press ["River stirs ripples of debate," News, March 30].
Newsday, in recommending adoption of the plan, indicated "the plan has a lot to admire; acquiring open space, setting water quality goals and monitoring river water, and enacting requirements for controlling stormwater runoff" ["A plan to save the Carmans," Editorial, Feb. 10]. Sadly, there is no way to implement these goals without standards, specifics or funding.
Instead, the Watershed Protection and Management Plan has less to do with protecting the watershed and more to do with promoting development through the adoption of a new multifamily code that gives the town planning board the ability to rezone 10,000-plus acres of commercial, industrial and business properties to high-density, multifamily housing.
Newsday says that one of the plan's "good ideas" is allowing the construction of higher density housing in "nonresidential areas of downtowns." Actually, the plan allows construction outside of downtowns, in congested corridors along Middle Country Road and Route 112, and in communities like Mastic, where the Forge River has already been seriously impacted by overdevelopment.
Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko repeatedly refused to appoint a single civic representative to the 16-member study group -- despite the appointment of several members from the Long Island Builders Institute.
It's popular today to talk about transparency and support for community-based planning. But the sad truth is that the Carmans River plan just isn't a watershed protection plan, it is an economic development plan. It wasn't hammered out by Brookhaven's citizens, it was hammered out by developers and special interests.
If permitted to dictate code, veto science and exclude citizens who do not support a high-density housing agenda in exchange for marginal preservation, then obviously special interests will be the only winners in this planning process.
MaryAnn Johnston
Editor's note: The writer is the president of the Affiliated Brookhaven Civic Organizations.
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