According to Vision Long Island, on January 27th the Town of Brookhaven extended the Middle Country Road development moratorium for another six months. The purpose of the moratorium is to enable Brookhaven to conduct a master plan within the Middle Country Road corridor (NY Rte 25) in the hamlets of Coram and Middle Island. The master plan is still in its initial stages, and thus an extension of the moratorium is essential to completion of the community visioning process. The town has also extended the study area for the corridor into Selden and Centereach.

One of the big stumbling blocks for civic and municipal leaders attempting to forge pedestrian friendly, village-like development in the area is a NY State DOT plan to widen Route 25 to five lanes. The community proposals have called instead for traffic calming, and want the area treated as a place rather than as a corridor. DOT has at times sent observers to community planning meetings, but has so far refused to put its project on the table and contribute in a collaborative way.

Governor Pataki called on DOT to do just that in his "Quality Communities" smart growth initiative (MTR #306), but that program hasn’t carried a lot of weight into the transportation process.

Despite the DOT’s obstruction, the Middle Country Road Renaissance project has blossomed into one of Long Island’s most promising planning initiatives. See www.middlecountryroadproject.org.  

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