I recently attended the Oyster Bay town meetings for the Old Plainview rezoning project. Because of my involvement with the building industry, I met a week prior to the meeting with the developers to educate myself on the proposed rezoning. I thought the plan to beautify my hometown of Plainview was an excellent, well-developed project by Mr. Wang and his partners. It would have been a great addition to an underdeveloped and unattractive portion of town. The residents were flooded with misinformation about the taxes, the traffic congestion, the influx of new students and so on. The PTA and our one-woman civic association were quoting Seasons Development as poster developer for Plainview and Next Generation housing. What they did not tell you was that they opposed this development as well. "Seasons" has no homes for the Golden Age or S2 housing. The 106 condos are for 55 and older but none of them are S2, and sell for $435,000 and up. They have no garages or elevators and they are on the LIE service road. They cry "Stop Mega Development," yet if Old Plainview built as many units per acre they could have built 877 homes not 499. You call that mega development.

I am ashamed and embarrassed by the tactics used by these "concerned residents" against the so called "mega development." Mr. Wang received evil racial e-mails, and Mr. Greenfield was threatened with residents boycotting his Shop Rite supermarket if he chose to build a store in the new development. I overheard a group of seniors leaving the meeting saying how happy they were that the area would remain as it is now. What most people don't realize is that the land will be developed anyway, just not as a planned community. Now we will have 45 single family homes on one acre each that will most likely be too expensive for our children to buy, plus two huge office buildings in the north section. The post office and surrounding stores along Old Country Road will remain unsightly, as they have been for the 30 years I have lived in this town. We will not have 24 Golden Age Homes and 24 Next Generation Homes, a beautiful hotel, new shopping center, and esthetically pleasing small office structures all blended into a lovely community. Find out the truth before bashing the big bad builder. It has been my experience that the builders on Long Island want what is best for the community. Either way, the builder makes money. They went to a lot of trouble, time and money to plan this community for us. You blew it Plainview! Oh, what could have been.

Shelley Feigelson

Plainview resident; 2006 president -Associates Council Long Island Builders Institute; National Association of Home Builders member