North Hempstead Supervisor pitches first update to master plan since 1989

North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena pledged to update the town's master plan for the first time in decades during her annual State of the Town address Monday in Port Washington.

The town's master plan, which municipalities use as an organizing document to steer development and growth, has not been freshened since 1989, DeSena said during her speech to a packed room at the Harbor Links Golf Course. North Hempstead will request proposals from consulting firms "in the coming weeks," she said.

"This will help us preserve our neighborhoods, guide development wisely, and coordinate all our departments to work toward the same goals," DeSena said.

The updated master plan will help the town with zoning for housing and parks, as well as economic development, DeSena said in an interview later in the day.

The supervisor, who is running for reelection in November, championed a litany of infrastructure projects the town has embarked on over the past year, including the ongoing renovation of town dock in Port Washington, the completion of the town's 9/11 Memorial at Manhasset Valley Park and the shoreline restoration of Bayview Avenue.

"We took it head-on, stabilizing 700 linear feet of shoreline," DeSena said, referring to the Bayview Avenue work. "We not only repaired existing damage but we fortified the road against any future storms."

Sean McCarthy, the Democrats' candidate for supervisor, was an invited guest as a Port Washington Police District commissioner. McCarthy, who called for the updating of the town's master plan during his campaign launch last month, said in an interview Monday he was "glad [DeSena] is responsive to the needs of the town as expressed by her political opponent."

He said it is important for the master plan to be updated to coordinate "large-scale public works" projects.

"It is housing, it is transportation, it is businesses access. There are so many different components," he said. "You can't integrate all those very expensive public works unless you have everybody playing on that same sheet of music."

DeSena said in an interview that she had wanted to update the master plan since taking office in 2022, but was unable to during her first two years because Democrats controlled the town board, and she didn't think she would be able to garner the votes to approve a consulting firm.

Then, the town was without a planning commissioner for much of 2024 until Nancy Shahverdi was hired in September of that year.

"She had a tremendous amount of work to catch up on," DeSena said. 

"It will not be binding. It creates a road map," DeSena said. "The board will be able to choose from the road map what it would like to implement."

DeSena also championed various building department reforms during her speech, including the rollout of OpenGov, cloud-based software that "streamlines operations, improves communication and puts residents first."  

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.