Even with diminished editorial resources, like most “dailies,” Newsday remains often the only public-affairs coverage resource for much of its home base of Long Island, N.Y. So this week it reported the striking pledge of the new town supervisor in Brookhaven to open up housing development there. Republican Dan Panico said he would seek to eliminate approval-process steps that could cut the lead time for subdivisions by a year and free existing owners to add accessory units with just a checkoff. In hamlets such as Yaphank and Medford, that could mean a last frontier for mid-range (but still expensive) home building in Suffolk County, where barriers to growth are high. Parts of the town are within a 45-minute drive–with favorable traffic–of employment spots on the privileged East End (Hamptons) as well as long-settled communities to the west. Vast stretches of Brookhaven are reserved as natural-resource areas such as pine barrens and estuaries, as well as for the 5,265-acre grounds of the eponymous national laboratory there, but it offers enough recently rural land to move the needle on local housing supply. (Already, one such project has gone ahead.) As important, Panico’s promise suggests a “YIMBY” political openness that no longer exists in most of the surrounding areas. Timing may be opportune: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul still wants to extend carrots to localities blessing “affordable” development, although she has pulled back from sticks that suburban interests resisted last year. The Democrat–who lost Long Island in her tight election race in 2022–may find common cause with the GOP upstart there.
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/brookhaven-supervisor-dan-panico-jzrqopak
Tim W. Ferguson 