NOTE: As with most Internet polls, this poll is not balanced against a weighted sample. There is no statistical accuracy relating to any specific demographic of poll takers. Anyone can take this poll and the Northender collects no data about the respondents.
When It Comes to AvalonBay, Newsday Doesn't Get It
After discarding this community’s reasoned concerns regarding AvalonBay’s proposed 300-unit rental complex in the Hamlet of Oyster Bay as a “knee-jerk” reaction (editorial, June 1) and publishing Avalon executive Matt Whalen’s statement that opponents to Avalon complexes “are afraid of what they can’t understand” (May 22), Newsday’s most recent article had the facts wrong (“Town Dismisses Apartment Plans”, June 29). While we and several other Coalition members have submitted letters to Newsday’s editor informing them of the facts specific to this particular project and correcting the glaring factual inaccuracies in their articles and editorials, Newsday has not only repeatedly refused to publish any opinion other than their own, but has refused to even take into account the facts at issue in their uninformed editorials and articles. Even more disturbing, Newsday seems to simply repeat, verbatim, the rhetoric Avalon and its executives have been spreading through our community for the last two years. Of course, the editors of Newsday are entitled to have an opinion different than our own, but they also have a journalistic obligation to their readers to base their editorial view on the facts, rather than on the word of a single developer with a profit motive.
In their most recent editorial of July 3rd, Newsday takes a cheap and uninformed shot at Town Supervisor John Venditto in response to the Supervisor’s responsible and gutsy leadership in recognizing the incredible lack of merit to Avalon’s application to the Town Board. Rather than continuing to drag this community and the Township through Avalon’s reckless proposal, Supervisor Venditto stood up, NOT in response to the volume of “those who shout the loudest”, but instead in a reasoned analysis of what is truly in the best interest of this community and the Town of Oyster Bay at large. He should be praised, not for bowing to “NIMBY-ISM” (which he did not), but for recognizing and securing the welfare of his constituents.
Although Avalon’s application does not contain any component for senior or next generation housing, nor is the proposed site in the Hamlet located within or in walking distance to the downtown, Newsday repeatedly refers to the need for senior and young-family housing and to the need for “smart growth” in its “reasoning”. They ignore the fact that 43% of the Hamlet’s housing is rentals, far exceeding the percentages of all other Towns and Counties in Avalon’s own reports, yet continually cite the lack of rental housing on Long Island as the reason the project is needed. Newsday asserts that young families are fleeing Long Island, yet fails to address the fact that, according to the O.B.-E.N. School District, public student enrollment has been steadily increasing at a rate of nearly 12% from 1999. Perhaps most importantly, Newsday appears to completely dismiss one of the most critical issues in the debate: the precedent-setting nature of the brand new zoning category also sought by Avalon that would establish the basis for other applicable 5-acre sites to be developed at a density of 60 units/acre throughout the entire Town of Oyster Bay, nearly 4 times the maximum density of 16 units/acre. The Avalon application has enormous consequences Town-wide, and whether one considers this a needed change or a disastrous mistake, the fact cannot be ignored- except by Newsday.
Newsday should get its facts straight before attacking a project it does not understand, and, in particular, before attacking Supervisor Venditto, who demonstrated a clarity of vision and strength of leadership in a way all of us should applaud.
