ONLINE EDITION FRIDAY AUGUST 24, 2001

Roslyn is a waterfront town. That description may come as a surprise to some residents, but Planning Board members, armed with a New York State grant, are in the process of making the Hempstead Harbor waterfront a vital part of the village's landscape.

More specifically, they are developing a Waterfront Enhancement Strategy, one that would both create public access to the waterfront and provide connections between it and the downtown business district. The idea is not a new one. When Forest City Daly successfully applied to build senior housing units in the village, part of the agreement stipulated that they assist in a long-term waterfront improvement plan.

Last year, the village was awarded a state grant to produce the enhancement strategy, which is intended to build upon the village's own Master Plan. Noting that downtown Roslyn is located entirely within the village's historic district, and the portions of lower Hempstead Harbor have been designated as significant fish and coastal wildlife areas, Planning Board members believe that such an enhancement strategy represents a tremendous opportunity to connect the historic downtown with the waterfront.

For now, the Planning Board is soliciting proposals from consulting firms to the village for the preparation of its enhancement strategy. The deadline for such proposals is Sept. 10. On Thursday, Sept. 13, the Planning Board will hold a public meeting to discuss the applications. The board is seeking volunteers among all Roslyn residents to serve on a steering committee that will also be active in the enhancement strategy process. The meeting will take place at 8 p.m. at the Village Hall, 1200 Old Northern Blvd.

Objectives of the enhancement strategy will include waterfront access, vehicular and pedestrian circulation, redevelopment opportunities, navigation and dredging, and cultural and natural history.

Concerning waterfront access, the Planning Board hopes to identify opportunities to improve public waterfront access opportunities both to and along the waterfront. They also plan to improve pedestrian connections between the waterfront and the business district, to identify appropriate types of recreational vessels (water taxi, hand-held vessel launch areas, canoes, kayaks, crew boats, small motorized vessels) that the village may desire to encourage along the waterfront, and to make better use of publicly owned waterfront land for recreational or park use.

For what they term vehicular and pedestrian circulation, Planning Board members want to assess opportunities to improve vehicular and pedestrian connections and circulation between the waterfront and the business district. In addition, they hope to assess the "significant vacant land" located in the northern portion of the village near Hempstead Harbor and how future development may be planned to provide for vehicular roadways and pedestrian walkways and connections, plus assess options to provide parking on inland parcels and to reuse existing waterfront parking facilities for recreational use.

On the navigation and dredging front, the Planning Board seeks to assess the economic and environmental feasibility of dredging in lower Hempstead Harbor to provide navigable depths for generally small types of recreational vessels and to improve the flushing capacity and circulation of surface waters.

Finally, the Planning Board hopes to both identify the village's maritime heritage through an interpretive waterfront program and to ensure the integrity and value of the village's historic resources.

In all, the Waterfront Enhancement Strategy will contain a prioritized list of projects needed to implement the waterfront objectives: an inventory and analysis of existing conditions; a description of the specific steps that must be taken to complete each project; cost estimates; potential funding sources; and recommendations for project management responsibilities.

The strategy will also include the preparation of plan view schematics, elevation drawings, streetscape renderings, and other graphics to visually depict the location, appearance, and relationship of projects and improvements to the overall business district. Again, Planning Board members are most interested in input from the Roslyn public, and for local residents to volunteer their time for service on a waterfront steering committee.