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.
Matt Whalen’s letter, printed in the May 18th edition of the Oyster Bay Enterprise Pilot, is yet another example of how a well funded corporation, using very bright and well paid people, can manipulate, misrepresent and distort data to fit any agenda they deem profitable.
Mr. Whalen claims that the amount of sewerage generated per day will be 25,555 gallons and that that amount is 1.4% of the total permitted capacity of the O.B. sewerage treatment plant, which is 1.8 million gallons per day (gpd). Let’s face it, representing the issue this way makes it appear fairly benign. But let’s see how this can be turned around if we represent it another way.
While I am certain that Mr. Whalen could readily explain where he got the numbers that he is using for this calculation, the OBSD uses 300 gpd, per unit to estimate sewerage output. Multiplied by 270 units gives us 81,000 gpd. The total acreage served by the OBSD is 975 acres and the current total sewerage generated is 1.2 million gpd, which means the current average is 1230 gpd per acre of land being generated. Avalon’s site is ~5 acres and will generate 81,000 gpd making the sewerage generated 16,200 gpd per acre. This means that Avalon is proposing a project that will generate 1,317% more sewerage per acre than is being currently generated. If we allow Avalon to set this precedent, how long will it be before the treatment plant reaches capacity. More to the point, while we are legally permitted to dump as much as 1.8 million gallons of sewerage each day into a bay that is already beyond its capacity to process these pollutants and nutrients, the question is – should we? But that’s not the point of this letter.
Mr. Whalen claims that high-density housing is a component of “smart growth” because it enables the preservation of open space, yet they are providing no open space in this proposal. Instead, they have offered to contribute $1 million to be used to purchase land for this purpose. I would imagine that at today’s prices, $1 million might secure a little more than an acre of land. Using the same sewerage density calculations as above, Avalon would need to provide 65 acres of open space to maintain the current average sewerage generation. Are we to pay the cost of preserving the additional 64 acres of open space while The Avalon Corporation reaps the profits generated from the increased density side of this equation? But that’s not the point of this letter.
In March, I read Dr. Pearl Kamer’s [economist who did reports on the effect the proposed AvalonBay development would have on the community] letter in the Enterprise Pilot and was somewhat amazed by the claim that allowing Avalon Bay to proceed with this project would enable our young people to afford to stay here on Long Island. According to Avalon’s own website, the least expensive one bedroom apartment available in the Glen Cove complex is being offered for $1997.00 per month. In the Long Beach Avalon one bedroom apartments listed start at $2360.00 and go as high as $2825.00 per month. At those prices I doubt anyone at Habitat for Humanity is concerned about their new competition.
Perhaps what Dr. Kamer means is that by flooding the rental market with 270 new apartments, they will crush the market for existing rentals by luring away the most financially stable tenants who can afford Avalon’s prices. Rising vacancy rates will then force the current owners of two family houses and other rental properties to lower rents, lower their standards for potential tenants or, sell their property at depressed prices. This way, current residents can bear the cost of providing affordable housing for our “next generation” while Avalon Bay pockets huge profits for shareholders. This is reminiscent of what happens to community based businesses when Wal-Mart or the Home Depot open up. Avalon Bay will prove to be the big box store of the residential housing market. If you don’t think this scenario can happen, just talk to someone who has been involved in the rental real estate market in Glen Cove over the last three years.
The point of this letter is this. The residents of Oyster Bay came together nearly 20 years ago to halt the development of waterfront condominiums and a “boatel” on a former shipyard property, resulting in the public acquisition of that property. We have, in recent years, voted to overwhelmingly pass not one, but three substantial bond issues to preserve open space. Just this year alone we have stopped the construction of a 68 unit housing development on Mill Pond, which is to be acquired for open space, and have adopted a moratorium on residential construction in order to address the effects of over-development in the Hamlet of Oyster Bay. To their credit, our elected officials have become increasingly responsive to its residents’ concerns, particularly in regards to the environment and over-development. Each time these elected officials have come through for their residents, albeit at times with a little prodding, and done what was right. But even not knowing all of this, do those bright people at Avalon truly believe that any elected official would vote for a change of zone to permit this project in the face of such overwhelming opposition? To do so would be political suicide. Sorry Avalon, but we get the government we deserve and you get to go home.
