Huntington Town panel backs park project

A long-proposed park has been given the green light by the Town of Huntington Environmental Open Space and Park Fund Review Advisory Committee, which has voted to recommend to the town board to spend no more than $835,000 to build Coral Park along Broadway Greenlawn Road.

The project -- launched in the late 1990s when the committee earmarked $300,000 for the park in Huntington after a developer donated the land -- stalled until last fall, when some residents began to lobby the town to get it built.

Seven of the 10 members of the committee, at a meeting Tuesday night, voted to take an additional $285,000 from the neighborhood park fund and $200,000 from the environmental advisory committee park improvements fund to finish the park, and $50,000 from the neighborhood enhancement fund to pay for a traffic signal.

The 2.8-acre park is to include a parking lot, basketball court, playground, open playing field, bicycle racks and a gazebo. A comfort station was removed from the plan after community objection and town officials said there is a "policy" that only parks used by organized sports leagues have bathrooms.

"I'm very glad they made the recommendation, and I'm looking ahead to proceeding to build the park," said town board member Susan Berland, who plans to sponsor a resolution at the May 22 town board meeting to accept the recommendation and use the money to build the park.

Town board members Mark Mayoka and Gene Cook support her resolution.

Tanya Simmons, 45, lives in a nearby neighborhood and said the park has been promised for as long as she remembers.

"It's time for us not to have to worry about how our kids are going to get to the YMCA or TRI-CYA or any other community park when there should be a park right in our own community," she said, after the committee's recommendation. "This is such good news."

Residents in another nearby neighborhood had said there were enough parks in the area. But at a meeting last week, a resident who lives in that development, Andy Kaplan, scoffed at suggestions that the park idea had divided the communities. "The park is long overdue," he said last week.

Town officials will ask the county for permission to install a traffic light in front of the park on the county's Broadway Greenlawn Road, to address safety concerns.