Group effort to save the Carmans

Richard Amper is executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, an environmental organization.

Long Island has a reputation for poor planning, sprawling over the landscape and brawling over land use. However, environmentalists and developers came together to protect Long Island's largest river -- and stayed to do much more.

The Carmans River, one of the Island's cleanest, flows 10 miles from near the Long Island Expressway in Middle Island south to Shirley and the Great South Bay. About a third is already protected by parkland. Another third of the land on both sides has been identified for acquisition by government.

To protect the river, stakeholders gathered beginning in October at the suggestion of New York State Pine Barrens Commission Chairman Peter Scully and Brookhaven Town Supervisor Mark Lesko. Some were veterans of negotiations that led to enactment of the Pine Barrens Protection Act of 1993, the plan that has protected drinking water under a 100,000-acre area in Suffolk County and preserved natural habitat, while directing sensible development to less sensitive areas.

Work was done by technical experts and government planners in nearly three dozen meetings at Brookhaven Town Hall. It has resulted in a plan to ban development in 2,100 acres of the Carmans watershed by expanding the core preservation area of the pine barrens, where no development is permitted.

If approved by local and state governments, the creative plan aims to put that watershed land off limits by transferring development away from residential areas to commercial and industrial areas of the town.

Near the river, development will be limited to single homes on five-acre lots. Developers who might have intended to build at a higher density will be allowed to transfer those rights so they can develop more units -- in some cases, as many as nine housing units per acre -- in commercial areas on main roads.

The agreement promotes construction of much-needed multifamily housing and provides incentives to build it near railroad stations, supermarkets and other amenities to create livable, walkable communities. After failing to agree on the meaning of the term "affordable housing," the group instead designated that new units emerging from the plan cost $225,000 to $250,000 each.

A key provision to protect the river is for the government to buy land in the watershed -- perhaps 1,000 acres at a cost of $80 million -- with money from existing funds from county drinking-water protection programs, sales taxes and an annual commitment of $10 million a year from the town.

The plan provides environmental protection by reducing the flow of pollutants to the river and Great South Bay and protects its rich diversity of plants and animals. The plan also provides for the development Long Island needs -- where it belongs -- and housing that more people can afford.

Before the plan takes effect, town and state officials must approve it. The town will consider adopting a code for multifamily housing. The state will consider expansion of the core preservation area of the pine barrens.

We achieved this plan by looking at what stakeholders wanted, instead of the usual focus on what we don't. Government facilitated the discussions, but citizens themselves hammered out the agreement.

Yes there are a few naysayers who are concerned about higher-density housing elsewhere in the town. Some said the same about the pine barrens plan in 1993, but their fears have not been realized.

Like the Pine Barrens Act, the Carmans River Watershed Protection and Management Plan should remind all of us that by working together positively, we can start solving our most pressing problems instead of just arguing about them.