Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi held a bus tour throughout the community on October 20 to discuss ideas for economic development in Farmingdale and South Farmingdale. In doing this, Suozzi plans to collect input from residents, community leaders and activists and apply their suggestions and concerns in shaping the future of local communities.

The bus tour, which began and ended behind Farmingdale Village Hall, provided community representatives on hand with an opportunity to point out key areas of concern. Among those present on the tour were representatives from the Village of Farmingdale, Town of Oyster Bay, Legislator Salvatore B. Pontillo's office, the Concerned Citizens Association of Farmingdale, Starkie Brothers Nursery, RGE Properties (Liberty Site landowners), the Farmingdale Fire Department and county officials.

At the start of the tour, the county executive encouraged those in attendance to point out any areas which may concern the community. The bus headed down Main Street toward South Farmingdale, past the high school and Woodward Parkway Elementary School and headed to the Liberty Site on Motor Avenue. Suozzi mentioned future plans for the site and discussed the idea of possibly building office space on the property. Jefry Rosmarin of RGE Properties, landowner, noted that he would be happy to entertain the idea of leasing the remaining six acres of the property to a high-skill, high-tech company at Suozzi's suggestion, but hasn't received any offers.

Current plans for the 30-acre Liberty Site include the Town of Oyster Bay, that recently purchased nearly half of the property, having the contaminated portion of the property cleaned up to become an extension of Allen Park. In addition, RGE is in the midst of leasing land to a Stop & Shop Supermarket and gas station on nine of the remaining 15 acres, provided all permits and town approval are granted. This would leave the property owner with six acres left over, and he said he'd be happy to look into the possibility of building a private office building, provided that there was a tenant interested. Suozzi noted that he will be in touch regarding leasing costs and the possibility of encouraging a high-tech business to come into the community.

The bus also toured the area of Farmingdale in which day laborers often congregate, a major issue concerning residents of the community. Suozzi questioned alternative locations they may be able to gather in and discussed how a similar situation was handled in Glen Cove, where Suozzi was mayor before becoming county executive.

Other issues discussed included apartment complexes in the village, where the county executive noted that owners should clean up areas and perhaps add some foliage outside of the buildings to spruce them up; illegal housing, which village officials noted they have had a 100 percent success rate in reported cases; the presence of gangs in the area and the Raven's Nest, a former adult entertainment establishment which had been closed roughly five years ago and was expected to be demolished within a week of the tour. The county executive met local officials and representatives, as well as representatives from OTB (who purchased the property to expand their facility and construct additional parking) exactly one week later to watch the demolition of the building.

The tour preceded a meeting which was held later that evening at Farmingdale High School, when the county executive further discussed these and other issues with residents.

Suozzi explained that the county has drafted an Economic Development Plan for Nassau that outlines broad goals for the future development of the county in order to combat the problems individual communities face as well as to further add to the benefits of living in each community.

"We're trying to develop a master plan as to how to make it happen. Nassau County had explosive residential growth in the '50s, '60s and '70s and explosive commercial growth in the '60s, '70s and '80s. Now we've stopped growing," Suozzi said. "The reason we've stopped growing is there are very few places left to grow ... and people are concerned that we're going to lose our quality of life as far as a suburban community goes."

The county executive added that Nassau already has overdevelopment of commercial strips, a decline in many traditional downtowns, polluted properties, pockets of poverty and segregated communities. He also noted many positive characteristics, including the highest rising property values in the United States, the lowest crime rate for any community over 1 million people anywhere in the country, the third lowest unemployment rate in the state and 14 of the top 100 schools in the nation.

"We've got great things but we've stopped growing. If we don't grow it's a problem because Nassau County only has three sources of revenue - property taxes, sales taxes and state and federal aid," Suozzi explained. He added that state and federal aid has been going down since 1980 and sales tax revenues only bring in approximately $30 million, in a good year, to the county's $2.2 billion budget.

"Property tax revenues only go up one of two ways: you grow the tax base by building new buildings, stores, houses, [etc.] or you raise the property taxes ... people don't like it when you raise their property taxes," he said. Suozzi added that one solution would be to decrease spending and cut expenses.

"So we've cut the workforce to the smallest its been in 30 years in Nassau County, we've already found $100 million in waste, fraud and abuse that we've eliminated from the government, we're borrowing less than half the money than we used to borrow ... and not easy to do when you still have to take care of the parks and fix up the county buildings and pave the roads [etc.]," Suozzi said. "We did a property tax increase one time, I don't want to increase property taxes again. But even with all these cuts, the county still has explosive growth in costs."

The reason, Suozzi explained, is that Medicaid, health insurance and pension costs are going up by $120 million next year, something over which the county has no control.

"So we have to figure out how we [can] grow for the long term in Nassau County so we can expand our property tax base and also help the rest of the economy [while preserving] our quality of life," he said. "Now we're going community by community and taking that general plan, introducing it to the people who live in the community and then asking for their input as to what they'd like to see happen in their particular community."

Suozzi noted that there are two major components being focused on in terms of growth: expanding high-skilled, high-tech industry and encouraging sports, entertainment and tourism. He noted that having an educated workforce is a very high priority, as well as having high-paying jobs and affordable housing available to young workers so they can afford to live on Long Island. Sports, entertainment and tourism are important, he said, because the industry increases the sales tax revenue and also promotes quality of life.

Traffic is another major concern, Suozzi noted, as congestion is getting worse and worse in Nassau. Encouraging development is a priority and Suozzi pointed out four geographic locations where the county wants to do so: traditional downtowns, because they build a sense of community and create a sense of character; brownfields, because they can be recycled and put back to productive use; minority neighborhoods, because they are places that have historically never been invested in before; and the area known as the Nassau County Hub, to establish it as the "downtown of Long Island." Suozzi noted that the area is already heavily developed but has many traffic problems. His goals include to fix the traffic problems, promote more businesses, develop and rebuild the Coliseum to make the area a cultural business centerpiece for all of Long Island.

The county's plan can be downloaded from the Nassau County Economic Development website, www.nassaucountydevelopment.org. The plan divides the county into 35 economic development areas, allowing it to work with each community to create a vision based on what residents would like to see in their neighborhoods. Similar tours and meetings have been held in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the county and more are planned for the future.

"With the support of our three town supervisors and our local mayors and with your input, the county will develop a detailed plan for the future of your community that will be incorporated into the Nassau County Master Plan. This plan will then be used to encourage the development you want in your neighborhood and discourage development you do not want," Suozzi said. "Farmingdale and South Farmingdale are great communities. We want to take care of these communities so that residents can enjoy them for years to come. I am very pleased that, as we rebuild Nassau County government by eliminating fraud, waste and abuse, we now can also address neighborhood issues that impact on our suburban quality of life."