As one of the members of the committee charged to develop recommendations for the YaphankCountyCenterLongwoodSchool DistrictSouthCountySchool District . and the , I am surprised to find numerous guidelines included in the RFP that were never discussed by the committee. For example: the percentage of housing units to be designated as affordable, an indoor facility for recreational ATV and Motorcross use, the preference given to emergency service workers for the housing units, and the possibility that the County would lease the property instead of selling it. I also believe that 1,000 units of housing is an unfair burden for the community of Yaphank to take on, as presently the population of Yaphank is 4,590, with 1,700 housing units. It is also an unfair burden to place on one school district. The original eleven proposals for the property had the housing units divided between the
Johan McConnell
__________________________________________________________
The Yaphank Center Development RFEI Outreach Committee was formed by Legislative resolution, introduced by Kate Browning, in April 2006. The purpose of the eleven member committee was to provide advisory recommendations for the issuance of Requests for Proposals for the development of up to 250 acres of County owned land in Yaphank and to hold community outreach programs.
Each of the eleven responders to the Request For Expression of Interest were invited to give a presentation before the committee; a half hour for their presentation and a half hour for questions from the committee. The proposals were varied, ranging from a NSCAR like facility, with very little housing to almost all housing and passive or little recreation. The presentations included relocating the existing County facilities from the east side of Yaphank Avenue to south of the jail. Some suggested that the train station be enlarged or moved to behind Police Headquarters. The Public was invited on June 28th, to Longwood High School to review the proposals, to ask questions of the developers and to give oral and written comments to the committee.
Late in September the committee finalized their recommendation which will now be presented to the County Executive and the County Legislature. Once accepted, the next step is to prepare a Request For Proposals which would be sent out to the original responders. The process for developing the County property has many steps and many agencies that will be involved.
