As civic activists for the past decade, we feel it is imperative that some of the major flaws in planning the proposed Hub/Lighthouse Project be thoroughly explored. The history of the Hub, and its surrounding communities, demonstrates that the process of designing the current vision for the redevelopment of the Nassau Coliseum area as a vibrant, high-rise suburban center is neither unique nor desirable, and the Lighthouse Project is not the best solution to the long overdue, and much-needed, re-design of the Coliseum.

In January 1998, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum Privatization Committee articulated pretty much the same idea, when they produced the Nassau Hub Study. This 100-page document, sponsored by the Nassau County and Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agencies, was prepared behind closed doors by a private committee of political appointees and consultants without any input from the surrounding communities. However, it had most of the "bells and whistles" of the Lighthouse Project, complete with glossy drawings of an idealized, vibrant urban downtown plopped smack into the middle of suburbia. Several different modes of mass transit, including light rail and elevated "people-movers," were suggested and mapped out in various configurations. This 1998 study forgot to include the existing LIRR tracks that go right through Garden City and Mitchel Field, transporting the elephants to the circus at the Coliseum. The Hub study incorporated 2.9 miles around the Coliseum, including Roosevelt Field, Nassau Community College, Hofstra University and the Source Mall, but one of its main focal points was a new coliseum, anchored by a Coliseum Main Street connected to a new Convention Center Plaza.

The Lighthouse Project is quite similar, though it does add much taller buildings and even a Grand Canal (however, no one took into account that the wetlands adjacent to the Hub overflow onto the Meadowbrook Parkway whenever it rains too hard).

Eleven (11) months after the 1998 Hub study, the Nassau County Planning Commission released the county's first-ever Comprehensive Plan (Master Plan). This master plan followed two years of extensive public input, but unfortunately gave minimal mention of the Hub, other than recognizing it as the county's only regional center of education, commerce and recreation. To make matters worse, Nassau still hasn't updated its 1998 Master Plan, which is supposed to be done every five years.

After the 1998 Master Plan, a Nassau Hub Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) was organized in order to provide real input from the surrounding communities on any future plans for the Nassau Hub. This new CAC included us, and almost 100 other civic, environmental and community leaders offended by the closed-door nature and lack of public input in the Privatization Committee Hub Study. The volunteers in the Hub CAC were also very concerned about significant increases in existing traffic congestion around any Hub redevelopment; they also worried about the possible loss of business in adjacent downtown areas.

In response to the Hub Study and the CAC's demands, federal funding was approved about four years ago for a major investment study (MIS) of land use and transit options for the area. The redevelopment of the Hub, and the associated transportation alternatives, was not supposed to proceed until this study is complete. Even though the MIS is still doing its study, plans for the Hub have already been submitted to the Town of Hempstead for approval. Mr. Wang's previous Hub proposal, a 60-story "Lighthouse at Long Island," had to be abandoned due to heavy community opposition, especially to the idea that he wanted people in Montauk to be able to see it day and night. This may explain why the new Lighthouse Project has a handpicked citizen's advisory committee of about 30 members, several of whom don't even live or work in Nassau County. Unlike the previous Hub Citizen's Advisory Committee (CAC), many of those on this new committee seem to have been appointed because of the jobs or important positions they hold (just like the original Privatization Committee of 1998). Although there is nothing wrong with including such high-profile members, why have the civic and environmental volunteers of the original CAC been left out? Those of us who live in the communities around the Hub, who will be most directly impacted by this project's intrusion into our daily lives, were never asked to be on this new committee. Most of realize we need to replace the worn-out Coliseum and make better use of the asphalt moonscape around it. But doling out free Lighthouse goodie bags, and funding a $1 million Lighthouse Foundation that provides mini-grants to gain friends and influence in the surrounding areas, is not what the developers should be doing. Their actions are only going to fuel the anger of those in East Meadow, Hempstead, Merrick, Garden City, Uniondale, North Bellmore and everywhere else around here who already are disappointed that they've been left out of the process. If you create 17,000 parking spaces, then add over 3.5 million square feet of new office, retail and convention space plus some badly needed affordable housing, traffic problems are going to get a lot worse.

How will the hundreds of additional trucks this project will draw daily going to get to the Hub from Sunrise Highway or the Long Island Expressway? Will the Meadowbrook Parkway have to be widened to eight or 10 lanes, made available to trucks and then have to be encased in a sound wall like the LIE?

By ignoring the history of the Hub, and excluding the stakeholders from the surrounding communities who will be most affected, the Lighthouse Project is doomed to follow in the footsteps of so many recent mega-developments on Long Island that have failed to get off the drawing board.

When you're building a city, you have to start from the bottom up, not the top down.

Richard and Lisa Schary

Hub Citizens Advisory

Committee members