Last December, Vision Long Island held its 16th annual Smart Growth Summit with over 1,300 business, community, and government leaders participating. This year’s event provided 16 workshops, excellent speakers, timely topics, great networking and an important message for Long Island on downtowns, housing, environmental & transportation infrastructure and jobs among many others.
The "State of the Towns and Villages" breakfast panel included town supervisors and village mayors from across the Island, some newly elected, some in office for several terms. Each spoke about efforts in their municipalities to revitalize downtowns and develop areas surrounding train stations, improve walkability, and create a diversity of housing options. Many reflected on how much the conversation about development has changed over the past years. At the end of the breakfast session, two representatives from the youth summit spoke about the need for affordable housing for young people and families in their communities.
After breakfast, two sessions of panel discussion covered local topics such as resiliency for coastal communities and Long Island's energy future as well as broader topics such as complete streets, financing for mixed use development and increasing the supply of affordable housing.
The speakers during the networking luncheon included Rich Cave, founder of the Pink Tie, a fundraising organization for local charities, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone and Don Monti of Renaissance Downtowns. They were followed by Nassau County Comptroller Elect Jack Schnirman and Nassau County Executive Elect Laura Curran.
Finally the afternoon panels allowed more detail and discussion on local topics. Major Development Projects presented updates on significant projects across the Island including Heartland, the Ronkonkoma Hub, Riverside, and others by the project developers. Advancing Your Communities Vision gave updates on revitalization efforts by local community leaders in Hicksville, Kings Park, Huntington Station, Baldwin, and Smithtown as well as other island-wide community non profits.
For a more detailed write up of the event with videos of key speakers, click here
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