Dan Burden of Walkable Communities spent Friday, March 14 and Saturday, March 15 demonstrating his expertise in working with groups to form a consensus on what to do at Fireman's Field. As he concluded, he said this was his third time in Oyster Bay and he was sad that things hadn't happened with his previous suggestions.

He was in favor of the Theodore Roosevelt Museum project, saying the community has all the right ingredients to make it a success. Mr. Burden said, "You can have it all but you need energy invested in the project."

There were questions about the project. Judy Barnett asked how the infrastructure of the hamlet would be effected by the museum. Mr. Burden said his job was as a facilitator, that the research would come afterward. He said, "You haven't gotten good information as yet on the vehicle trips, the school buses, the tour buses."

There are environmental statements needed, as are engineering studies as to the feasibility of using the site, although he said the community can rely on Friends of the Bay to monitor the issues. He also called Firemen's Field an environmental problem, which might qualify for brownfield or grayfield grants for its cleanup.

The two-day event ended with the suggestion that an advisory committee be formed with people on all sides of the issues to form a community consensus about what should happen. People interested in working on the committee signed up. The list included (some names are missing as the photograph of the list is not clear): Chris and Claire Bellerjeau, Paige Dawson, Alex Gallego, Gary Drury, John Wallace, Ralph Fumante, John Bonifacio, Bill Sheeline, Bill Burke, Bob Basta, Helen Crosson, Art Koch, Rob Brusca, Michele Browner, Caroline DuBois, Walter Imperatore, Catherine Drabin, Peter Casparian, Barbara and Steve Pollack, Irwin Tantleff. Another list of Friends of the Advisory Committee included: Yehuda Tamari, Joan Drury, Jamie Deming, Pat Devlin.

When Mr. Burden asked the people at the Canavan Center to fill out five Post-it notes, each with a word that defines the hamlet of Oyster Bay, the top vote getters ran from safety, to history, to waterfront and small town-quiet and peaceful.

Mr. Burden said history was the big vote getter and added, the community understands that history is important here. He said what is needed is "place making." He said he and his assistant, Edward W. Efrurt IV, associate AIA , "see nothing as a big mistake to put a big museum on Firemen's Field."

He said, "If you grab it and make it into a great program, people will come to buy into the community. The local economy will prosper." He said on Long Island in general, he sees that there are complexities of dealing with government and he advised, "You have to take more of a hold in making changes."

He told a story of a town in California where either the state or county came in and took away their angled parking, although neither one would admit to it. The change turned the town into a highway for traffic and killed business. The town's people got together, planned and went en masse to government, presented their plans and made things happen. They got their city back with the return of angle parking and other projects, he said.

Mr. Burden suggested the advisory committee be formed so that informed consent can be given on issues and challenges, and to let progress go forward to honor the environment and history of the area, [as the residents of the California town had done]. He added, "I feel you will do that."

Mr. Burden said he would send a two-page cover letter to the organizers with a summary of his findings. He will also give them the material he generated to use in his power point demonstration.

As they ended, Mr. Erfurt said he met a great many Oyster Bay people and said, "They are really warm-hearted people who care for the community."

Mr. Burden suggested a good start for the community would be getting rid of the environmental issues at Firemen's Field.

At the end of the meeting at the Canavan Center, Oyster Bay Civic Association President Bill Von Novak said, "I hope Jim Bruns, [Theodore Roosevelt Association president who introduced the proposed Theodore Roosevelt Museum and Research Center to the community] now understands what the town is all about. He knew nothing before when he came to superimpose the museum on the area. Now hopefully he understands the depth of concern in the community. Now he has to come up with something."

The weekend program began as groups met in private Friday, March 14 with Dan Burden in the Green Room of the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Public Library. The press was not allowed to attend. Mr. Burden recorded everyone's comments without attribution saying that was the reason for not wanting the press there.

On Saturday morning, March 15, about 50 residents attended a tour of Firemen's Field lead by Dan Burden. It started as he watched Caroline DuBois of the Save Firemen's Field Coalition as she dumped small marshmallows in the flowing stream visible through a grating in the field. She hoped to show the progress of the water to the bay. By the time she checked it out, she said, "Either they had melted or the seagulls ate them." That stream comes from Beechbrook that flows through the senior housing development, under the Roosevelt Elementary School and under the football field to flow under Firemen's Field on to the bay. She said she believed the town sump on the north side of the tracks is a tidal wetland and may be fed by springs.

Ms. DuBois also pointed out a sign saying "no snow dumping" on a fence on the east side of the parking lot. Firemen's Field is where the Town of Oyster Bay dumps snow after cleaning up the hamlet after a snowfall. Ms. DuBois said there is an artesian well in the yard hidden behind the fence. She added that there are many artesian wells throughout the hamlet area.

Mr. Burden said he has traveled for 12 years to 200 towns a year talking about revitalization. This was his third time in Oyster Bay and the 80th time he has visited Long Island to explore the potential of areas and how to address all the needs of the community at one time.

Mr. Burden measured Shore Road which he found to be 41 feet across. He acknowledged that parking is a problem in Oyster Bay and suggested what is available is not well-managed. He said parking on the street uses a third of the land a parking lot uses and that parking on streets is beneficial because it slows traffic. He suggested back-in-angled parking which allows doors to be opened safely and safe entry back into the traffic lane. He said it takes getting used to.

He suggested diagonal parking on one side of Shore Road, and with tree wells interspersed. They change the character of the road, which he said slows traffic to six to 12 miles per hour and it will additionally, increase the parking spaces.

The parking spaces can be made smaller, 9-feet wide, a change from the previous 10 to 11-foot stalls.

Mr. Burden said all-day commuter parking should be only 8-feet wide. He said it does however increase dings. He said it was important to improve the parking lot even if they are making it smaller to allow for the museum. Architect Erfurt said the field should qualify for either brownfields or grayfields funding.

Mr. Burden said the advantage of using street parking as opposed to parking lots is that they use one-third the space of the lots. Mr. Burden said in the summer, parking lots generate extra heat. A green parking lot with trees and a filtration system is a better way to go, he said. With its proximity to the bay, Mr. Burden said it might become a model project and get funding.

Resident Louis D'Arpa said with the existing high water table, how would the lot respond to being developed? Mr. Burden said the work would have a "third party check" with Friends of the Bay monitoring the facilites.

Judy Barnett asked about parking and the need to manage it better, with merchants losing trade as a result of government employees parking near town hall. Mr. Burden said, "You don't want the best parking used by staff."

He related a story of Pasedena, CA, where the government decided to green up their parking by taking out a bond. They put in parking meters to pay the interest in the bond. He suggested people read The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup.

The High Cost of Free Parking was the August selection of APA's Planners Book Club. It's website says: "Off-street parking requirements are devastating American cities. So says Donald Shoup in this no-holds-barred treatise on the way parking should be.

"Free parking, Shoup argues, has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion, but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. Ubiquitous free parking helps explain why our cities sprawl on a scale fit more for cars than for people, and why American motor vehicles now consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production.

"But it doesn't have to be this way. Shoup proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking, namely, charge fair market prices for curb parking, use the resulting revenue to pay for services in the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking. Such measures, according to the Yale-trained economist and UCLA planning professor, will make parking easier and driving less necessary."

Joan Mahon, of the Main Street Association, asked how people could be encouraged to walk. Someone suggested giving people pedometers and walking 10,000 steps, which many health experts encourage.

Claire Bellerjeau of Buckingham's Variety Store said when people complain about the lack of parking she tells people to park in Firemen's Field, take the short cut next to the post office and says they will be at the store in 45 seconds to one minute. She said the problem with Firemen's Field is that it hasn't been made to look inviting that instead it looks like a "bad space."

Bill Burke, a retired high school administrator, said in his school's district there was an area that was dangerous. They increased the level of comfort there by having office space overlooking the area staffed by adults. He said improving Firemen's Field will make it more comfortable and will expand the vision of the town to include the water.

Mr. Burden said it was exactly the correct answer. He said people like famous city planner Jane Jacobs said an important thing is "eyes on the street."

Ms. Mahon asked him to speak about shared parking lots and Mr. Burden said it meant that instead of a minimum of parking there is a maximum of spaces allowed for a site forcing everyone else to become searchers for parking instead of dedicating spaces to one use. He said the typical worker takes up one-third of the office space that their car requires.

Judy Barnett asked, "How do we get the town to implement a parking plan: It's been seven years in the trying."

[Coverage of the Dan Burden, Walkable Communities will be continued in the March 27 issue of the Oyster Bay Enterprise Pilot.]