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Shoreham/Wading River Action Alert:
Community Charrette: Tallgrass Development Alternatives
Press Release
Event flyer (pdf)
Letter from Shoreham Civic Association
TALLGRASS CHARRETTE TO TAKE PLACE JULY 15
SHOREHAM, NY (June 28, 2006) — Vision Long Island will conduct a charrette beginning on Saturday, July 15, that will enable Shoreham area residents to come together and hammer out an agreement for the development of the Tallgrass Village Center.
Residents will be able to voice their visions of a final plan for the development of the Shoreham's DeLalio Sod Farm and Tallgrass Golf Course. The first session of the charrette process, which will culminate in September, will take place on Saturday, July 15, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the North Shore Public Library.
A charrette is a community-wide design process in which members of the public are invited to meet with planners, architects and other specialists and are encouraged to participate in workshop sessions and share their opinions and ideas for the future development and refinement of their community. The charrette is essentially a combination of an urban design studio and a town meeting. In this case, residents will study and debate the full spectrum of future alternatives for the Tallgrass development with a goal of creating a plan that is practical and achieves consensus.
The charrette has the support of the Shoreham Civic Organization. “We have been asking for this for two years,” Mary Daum, president of the civic association said at the group’s June 21 meeting. “This is aimed at understanding if this community will accept some kind of PDD and what would that PDD look like.”
The Town of Brookhaven will participate in the process. "I always welcome the opportunity to hear public comment regarding the future of this parcel including the option of acquisition." said Councilman Kevin McCarrick who represents the area," Decisions made will ultimately affect the Shoreham community for years to come"
Following the day-long session, officials of Vision Long Island, a non-profit group that helps create smart growth communities, and architects from ADL III Architecture P.C., of Northport, will set up a temporary design studio at the Tallgrass Golf Course clubhouse, where area residents will be able to stop in and view the progress of the design effort. An interim plan will be presented to the community on July 19 and a final vision will be unveiled in September.
“We want to come out with the best plan,” said Alec Ornstein, principal of Garden City-based Ornstein Leyton Co., one of the partners in the development project.
“The project is at a crossroads and the community needs to come together and with an apples to apples comparison of development and preservation scenarios” said Eric Alexander, Executive Director of Vision Long Island who will be facilitating the charrette. “We are looking for the community to participate in a series of meetings starting July 15th and moving through September to put closure on this process.”
The Tallgrass project has been the subject of discussions for almost three years and has been the subject of visioning forums sponsored by the developers in 2004 and by the Shoreham Civic Organization in 2005.
The developers, Tall Grass Properties LLC and TGC Operating Co., have offered a Planned Development District (PDD) to the community. They would get a change of zone to allow them to build higher-than-allowed-for density. In return they would provide certain public benefits to the community -- workforce housing, a positive cash flow to the school district, a new community building, open space preserved.
Under current zoning, the developers can build up to 283 single-family homes on the combined 321 acres, which would create financial hardship for the Shoreham-Wading River School District. The developers, while keeping their single-family home subdivision proposal alive, have worked with the community and the town on a PDD, for the two properties. A government-funded acquisition of development rights to preserve open space also has been proposed by local officials.
Vision Long Island’s mission is to join with others to promote livability and economic sustainability and environmentally responsible growth on Long Island. It encourages comprehensive land-use planning that is consistent with the needs of the local community, adjacent communities and the region as a whole.
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Vision
Long Island |