There are still some official actions left to take, but the Oyster Bay Town Board will now oppose the construction of a new mall on the old Cerro Wire Company site at Robbins Lane, Syosset, just off the Long Island Expressway near Exit 43. It became clear that one coalition of residents and organizations was angrier, more motivated and more local than the other.

Most planning and zoning decisions are like shotgun weddings. Either the government rules one way or someone will bring a lawsuit that eats up valuable, limited town or village resources. All an applicant needs is the slightest hint of precedent and any ruling contrary to their claim is an invitation to a dreaded "Article 78" lawsuit, charging that the government action was "arbitrary and capricious." Some of these suits win, all of them cost taxpayer dollars. Decades ago, most of our local governments foisted off as many zoning and planning decisions as possible onto separate appointed boards and commissions. More and more states, faced with clogged roads and urbanizing suburbs, are reviewing their laws in these areas from top to bottom. New York needs to do this in a very big way.

The possible construction of a mall on top of the Cerro wire site affects more than the immediate Syosset community. There are a lot of good reasons to oppose a mall at that location (ruining attempts to improve traffic flow on and near the LIE, the proximity to vulnerable small downtown commercial areas, and more).

Traveling east on the LIE, you'll see new shopping centers and commercial strips being built at the edge of neighborhoods, even as slightly older malls nearby struggle to survive and shops are closing. This continual commercial building, both further out and further in, off of every expressway and parkway is exactly the kind of sprawl development that is making Long Island travel less and less bearable, and making our communities less and less distinguishable.

Long Island's future is rebuilding, reconstructing and reinventing what's in our neighborhoods. We have older malls that already need to be rebuilt. There's enough potential work to keep local construction workers busy for a long time, if our political leaders have the vision and the guts to admit we're not some country suburb anymore. Give us vision and guts, not malls.