Open space and affordable housing: We Can Have Both

One person's new family home is another's "over development".

One person's job site is another's "unwanted shopping mall or ugly McMansion".

One person's concern about taxes is another's excuse to ban or sharply limit housing that could - heaven forbid! - actually contain children.

The suburban mind has a split personality - cut our taxes but increase our services - and -preserve open space but build homes our kids can afford -. This was nowhere more evident than in a recent Op-Ed piece by two members of the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum who want to convince government to use taxpayer funds buy thousands of acres of land, take the land off the tax rolls and then turn around and complain about high taxes. Sorry, but that doesn't add.

They become concerned about suburban sprawl after, conveniently, they have their own little piece of the suburban dream. But, of course, they want to deny this to others.

They say they support affordable housing but that the big bad builders won't build it. While we've never seen them support affordable housing, builders will welcome their support on any one of a dozen developments with affordable homes builders have before local town boards.

They are part of a largely homeowner environmentalist group that wants to seal Long Island up like a bug in amber. No new homes, no new children, no new office space, no new shopping malls, no new apartment complexes. These are bad, bad things, they say.

If they had their way there would never have been a Grumman, Arrow Electronics, Computer Associates, a Macy's, a Levittown, a Dix Hills. Instead there would be gently rolling plains and hills with nary a job nor home in site - except, of course, for theirs.

Is that what most Long Islanders really want? We don't think so. Our customers tell us they want less expensive housing for their elderly parents, starter apartments for their post-college children, and town homes for young families just starting out.

But the truth is that local government either prohibits most of these things or sharply limits the number that can be built. Builders would welcome the assistance of these enviro-politicians in convincing town and village legislators and zoning officials to permit denser development incorporating affordable housing.

That would reduce sprawl and respond to one of Long Island's critical needs. If the proper zoning were in place, builders could build that type of housing quickly and without taxpayer subsidies. As a matter of fact, denser development in selected areas could actually help preserve open space - at no cost to taxpayers.

Here's a proposal to the environmental politicians to work with us in helping to solve some of the problems we are all concerned about. Why not link open space acquisition and affordable housing together? We did so in the $75 million Suffolk County bond issue in 2004.

When we use taxpayer money to buy an open space parcel and take it off the tax rolls, let's also rezone an equal amount of land earmarked for higher density affordable housing.

Builders would buy the land at full market value, build the needed housing and the housing would contribute substantial amounts of tax revenues to the municipality to offset the cost of buying open space. We think that's a win-win proposition that balances our need for open space with the kind of housing Long Island needs to retain good jobs and keep more of our young people, our futures, from leaving Long Island for areas that provide affordable housing for young people, for nurses, for firefighters, for teachers and the trades people that keep our communities humming. What's not to like?

The writer is executive vice president of the Long Island Builders Institute, a trade group of Long Island home builders.