$13.4M in bonding for Babylon park upgrades, road fixes and more

The Town of Babylon is bonding for more than $13.4 million to fund park improvements, road reconstruction and equipment purchases.

This year’s annual borrowing is a drop from the $15.8 million the town approved for bonding in 2021. Town officials said the money is needed for dozens of upgrades.

"It’s to maintain our infrastructure while keeping to our policy to retire more debt than we incur," said Deputy Supervisor Tony Martinez.

That policy was amended in 2020 to allow for debt in excess of what is paid off in "extenuating circumstances." The town can exceed the amount of debt paid off by the lesser of either $2.5 million or 15% of the retiring debt. If there is a state of emergency in the town, the amount of debt taken on will be at the discretion of the town board.

The change was made after a study several years ago revealed the town would need to nearly double its annual road repaving and reconstruction spending to address all the needed work over the next decade. The largest chunk of this year’s borrowing is $6.6 million for road reconstruction. The town is still finalizing which roads it will work on this year, based on that study.

The next highest amounts of bonding are $1.3 million for construction machinery and equipment, and $1.1 million for improvements at Venetian Shores Park in Lindenhurst. Those renovations include replacing the infields at two ballfields with artificial turf and putting in new equipment at the spray park.

An additional $250,000 in bonding will go toward a new water UV filtration system at the spray park per state and county health department requirements, Martinez said.

"The park has come to the end of its life," he said of the facility, which was built in 2005. "We’ve been putting it together with duct tape and glue."

Martinez said the artificial turf will drain faster and allow for more games to be played on the fields.

"One of the biggest issues that the town deals with are space issues and scheduling," he said.

The bonding also includes $1 million for sand replenishment at beaches, and $600,000 for work on the Town Hall annex in North Babylon. The ongoing renovation of the annex took a backseat this year to work needed at Town Hall in Lindenhurst after pipes that date to the 1950s in the latter building were found to be corroding inside the walls, Martinez said.

The town also is borrowing $500,000 for the purchase of a property for the Wyandanch Rising revitalization. There are three private homes on Grand Boulevard that the town is trying to buy so it can redevelop the properties, and this money would go toward the purchase of one of the homes, Martinez said.

By Denise M. Bonilla

denise.bonilla@newsday.comdenisebonilla

Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.