A recent American Planning Association forum charted the progress of NYMTC’s Hudson Valley sustainable development strategies and highlighted the need for a long term commitment to the projects. Studies for Route 303 in Rockland and Routes 6/35/202 in Westchester are finished; studies for Brooklyn’s Coney Island and Long Island’s East End are still underway. Each effort uses community consensus to develop future plans for land use and transportation and takes about 2-3 years.

The farthest along of the Hudson Valley efforts is the Orangetown study, which includes the neighborhoods of Tappan, Orangeburg/Blauvelt, and Bradley Parkway along the Route 303 corridor in Rockland County. The strategy largely focuses on encouraging a mix of uses by reducing large retail, instituting traffic calming, reducing road widths, and generally improving quality of life. (For the detailed plan, see www.orangetown.com). Originally, the state DOT had planned to widen Rte. 303. Planning was completed about a year ago, and the next step is a DOT access management study to look at technical requirements associated with changes such as widening medians and making changes at intersections. The town has already upgraded signs, reduced speed limits and implemented a zoning rule to restrict retail development to 65,000 feet.

Despite this solid plan, the Town can only do so much without more money from the NY State DOT. So far, DOT has not allocated money to follow through with the strategy’s findings. The funding would pay for capital improvements, such as reducing lane widths, building bikeways and better walkways, and widening medians.

Local officials, such as Orangetown Supervisor Thom Kleiner, believe it is important to follow a good strategic process with actual results and set a positive example for the sustainable development strategies throughout the region. Other towns will be less likely to take this type of process —which has pioneered the joint development of town zoning plans with state transportation investment priorities — seriously if no tangible results come out of the ones that are already completed.

APA’s forum also highlighted how dependent these types of studies are on the local political environment. In Orangetown, for example, newly elected officials want to allow big box stores, such as Wal-Mart, in the newly designated zoning overlay district (which restricts retail to 65,000 feet, far smaller than the average Wal-Mart). The Journal News opined last week against this option, saying, "The Route 303 overlay zone provides for such good planning as hotels, such as the Holiday Inn in Orangeburg. These are ratables that do not bring constant traffic and trucking. A big-box retailer on Route 303, such as WalMart, would create even more traffic on a road already too saturated."

In response to this and similar political situations throughout the region, speakers at the APA forum highlighted the importance of having a local champion and building a large, community based stakeholder group to push the strategy along, no matter who is in office.

Links to the sustainable development strategies: Rockland, Route 303: www.orangetown.org

Westchester, Route 6/35/202: www.202and6.com

Long Island East End: www.seedsproject.com

Coney Island:

nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/gravesend.html.

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