During the recent Small Business Saturday following Thanksgiving, our Main Street in Port Washington was abuzz with activity or, to use the words of a neighbor, “hoppin.’” How can we sustain a high level of activity on Main Street year round?
If you believe the Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington, a successful Main Street is as easy as adding a few stories of apartments above the stores (except of course, our rows of individual stores would need to be razed and replaced with new three-story, block-sized buildings to fulfill that concept, but I digress). I guess their thought is that our new apartment dwellers would be captive, instant shoppers. If that were true then almost every commercial strip in Brooklyn and Queens would be hoppin.’
What makes a business corridor successful is more complex than turning over the keys to a developer and hoping the shiny, new, cookie-cutter buildings get filled with the right stores and people. The town needs to address the current ordinances and policies that make it difficult to start and keep a business on Main Street.
In parallel, we need to do the work of determining the right business mix for our town and location, and develop a business attraction and marketing strategy, before we start building new things. We might even find that our current structures are sufficient. Perhaps there is a case to be made for new, mixed-use buildings, but where is that analysis and is congested Main Street really the best place for these? Proponents of the Main Street proposal also keep forgetting that according to the Long Island Index, 5,500 of us already live within walking distance of Main Street, which is compact for Long Island.
Let’s not lose sight that Port Washington has two key tools for a vibrant Main Street, which other towns would envy: an intact, walkable, small-town structure and a relatively wealthy client base. We are missing: business friendly policies, ongoing dialogue with the current residents, and the right business mix. I disagree that a cookie-cutter downtown is the missing ingredient.
Please consider attending the public hearing on December 11 in Town Hall at 7:30 p.m.
"Dina" needs to recuse herself, and RFMBPW needs to be reigned in, or at least recognized to be an extension of the TONH offering them a seemingly neutral platform to spew their agendas. Let us not be fooled by them and understand that they are in essence funded by the TONH. In addition, you have "Dina's" husband as a board member there. This group started out led by Myron Blumenfiled to fight the incinerator and improve the landscape around Port Washington. They have been morphed into a non neutral entity, which should be "outed" in the press, so that poor unsuspecting people stop funding them.
Another point they love to brag about is the 1 space per apartment is required. What's missing from that statement? The required Business parking in the current code. The new regs. would allow owners to share their required on site needs with the Public Lots behind them, or through agreement with an adjoining property. There is not enough space now, what are we going to share? All of the other points they call for do not require an overlay district to achieve. Their proposal calls for trash management, this RFMPW proposal is the trash that is blowing down Main.
This is all being done under the guise of "beautification". They continue to say that the opposition has a biased view and is distributing misinformation. That is the proverbial "pot calling the kettle black." All information is biased towards whoever is presenting the information...so stop misleading the public, call rezoning what it is: a money grab. This stopped being about beautification of Main Street a long time ago.
SHOCKING that "Residents" have strayed so far from the reservation.
Whether you agree with her views on rezoning or not, her job is to represent us. We effectively had no representation. She should have voted, and lived with the consequences of that vote. She was elected to do a job, and tonight, not only did she completely disregard over 600 signatures on a petition not in support of the proposal, she completely disregarded the concerns of the many people who spoke out in person against the proposal. TONIGHT SHE FAILED MISERABLY TO PERFORM HER JOB AS OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE. THANK YOU.
As I left Town Hall, I noticed a line forming next door at the Building Department. Could Owner's actually have drawings and plans ready to go in for mixed-use applications? Hope they can check the status of my kitchen faucet replacement permit that has been in limbo for 10 months.
Starting to feel like "1984" and big brother is watching me.
The building with the fix it shop Corner building at Haven Ave. We are in for the rudest of awakenings should the rzoning proposal go through and if wee do in fact see major construction projects follow. Think traffic is bad nowe wait and see what happens when roads have to be closed for construction.
RFMBPW once again trotted out their chairman, co-president, secretary and a few others to share the same garbage they have selling to the Port community for a year. Your right, it is a rude awakening. We can only hope those residents who blindly follow and support RFMBPW will wake up and finally realize that this organization has betrayed their trust and needs to be disbanded. They are an absolute joke and have no business calling themselves a civic group. Oh, and to reiterate...our local councilwoman thought it was best that she abstain from the vote to avoid any appearance of a conflict-of-interest. Last night's actions did nothing the erase any appearance of conflicts, in fact it may have done the opposite. She should have voted...whether it was for or against...she has a duty to fulfill as our representative. She had the "guts" to write letters to the Port News and to run the rezoning meetings in full support of the rezoning proposal. She had the "guts" to aggressively question those who opposed the plan while she sat there quietly as RFMBPW said the same thing over and over. She should have had made her vote and lived with its outcome. Our local representative should not have left it to the other Board Members to decide what is best for our community. This was a complete dereliction of duty.
A member of RFMBPW in support of rezoning actually stood up and made the comment that if there was a vote of Port residents, that she actually thought most would agree that the new developments in New Cassel looks nice and be appropriate on Main Street. And this is the group that many local residents BLINDLY follow and give money to...and this is the group who it now appears will be making the planning / zoning decisions that effect Port Washington in the future. Its now very questionable if we can rely on our councilwoman to perform her duties.
On the one block of Main Street directly across from the LIRR station, one owner already owns 5 of the 7 lots? Agreed, it is going to be very difficult for a single property to redevelop individually...the parking requirements, setbacks, and ADA accessibility requirements will make it almost an impossibility. However, if an Owner owns multiple properties, redevelopment becomes a very real possibility, probably a certainty. Consolidating properties allow an owner to spread the parking requirements, take advantage of built-in parking credits, and conform to setback and ADA requirements. There is no legislation limiting the consolidation of properties, and it is clear that all the "not-mandatory" design guidelines are EASILY achievable without much effort. And the design guidelines do not ensure "charming" buildings. Sooner, rather than later, there will be a multi-lot, 3-story building on Main Street. Likely, it will be a full block. This is a done deal. The only question now is whether or not a mixed-used application has already been filed? There is no way RFMBPW would so aggressively propose and lobby for the rezoning legislation unless they and the proposal were being backed by special interests.
http://portwashington.patch.com/blog_posts/tis-the-season-to-love-our-town
The new buildings in New Cassel might look nice over there if you consider what was previously there. In our case we do not need the same type of construction which New Cassel has. From what I heard much of the Government approved building in New Cassel which included housing was said to have been a fiasco with a lot of problems at least that is what I remeber reading. Is this what Port residents really want?