ISLIP

Creating Mixed-Use Projects

Bayshore Revitalization
Bayshore
Town of Islip
Bayshore School District
2004

The award for Creating Mixed-Use Projects honors the Town of Islip and the Bayshore School District for their role in an extroadinary public-private endeavor to revitalize one of Long Island’s forgotten down-town centers.

Ten years ago Bay Shore was plagued by a deteriorating downtown and obvious physical blight. Over one third of its stores were vacant, boarded up or burnt down and many of the occupied stores were marginal. Main Street was a threatening place, both economically and socially. Businesses shied away, and most citizens felt unsafe venturing out at night.

The Town initiated Bay Shore’s dramatic turnaround with a streetscape improvement program funded by NYS Department of Transportation and the Town of Islip Community Development Agency. Over 225 decorative street lights were installed.

Other major efforts involved extensive rebuilding, including restoration of Bay Shore’s first firehouse. A large scale transformation of abandoned houses on Smith Street into townhomes by the Town, its Community Development Agency and the Long Island Housing Partnership has been profiled widely. Other homes on First and Second Street were purchased for rehabilitation by a local housing group.

Federal and Local Community Development Agency funds were used to replace burned out and dilapidated buildings on Main Street with a new business incubator. Funding for this and other programs also came from the Department of Commerce. A new office building has been proposed for the east end of town, next to the proposed Mill Pond. Just recently, restoration has begun on the last large vacant building.

The Mill Pond Park will bring winter ice skating back to Main Street, and create an oasis for the senses. It was created using a New York State Recreation grant and Suffolk County Downtown Revitalization funds. A second park is also being funded by the State. Just a few years ago, opponents would have found many reasons to fight this project, which received enthusiastic applause when announced at a Community Summit sponsored by the Bay Shore School District. It is a stellar example of how far Bay Shore has come.

While certain individuals and groups played major roles in the revitalization, tremendous credit must be given to the hundreds or thousands of community members who breathe life into Bay Shore. Numerous store owners have invested in their businesses and properties. Each spring and fall the Bay Shore Beautification Society brightens the downtown with flower baskets and wreaths. An abandoned movie theater was transformed by the community into the Great South Bay YMCA. A former x-rated theater is now the Boulton Center for the Performing Arts. A bandshell co-constructed at the Village Green with 100 dollar contributions from the community now features a summer concert series in addition to a steady flow of programs provided by the Chamber of Commerce and the Public Library.

Touro College has moved into a former Suffolk County Office Building, bringing with it a large student body.

The MTA rehabillitated the Long Island Rail Road Station. Its parking lots are full, with newly re-occupied stores around the station welcoming the rediscovery of this transit-oriented, mixed use, revitalized downtown center .

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South Wind Village is an affordable a mixed-income housing development within walking distance of downtown Bay Shore. It provides ownership and rental opportunities to persons of very low, low and moderate incomes. Serving to help eliminate blight in the extremely distressed downtown community, it includes 52 ownership units, 16 senior citizen rental units and 10 family rental units. It is the first major residential endeavor in the overall revitalization of the blighted Hamlet of Bay Shore, Town of Islip.

The Smith Avenue Revitalization Program (Phase IV of the Partnership for New Homes Program at Islip – Islip IV) adhered to many Smart Growth principles, including compact building design; housing for various household types, sizes and incomes; pedestrian access to the downtown; a strong sense of community; a rebuilt Watchogue Creek (maintaining an environmentally sensitive area); reinvesting in and strengthening downtown Bay Shore; and close proximity to bus and a rail services. The Town of Islip worked in partnership with the Long Island Housing Partnership and provided the land and partnered on many aspects of the financing.

The Long Island Housing Partnership sponsored the creation of a Community Housing Development Organization, the Bay Shore Partnership Housing Development Fund Company, Inc. to administer the program. The mission of the Long Island Housing Partnership is to provide housing opportunities for those who, through the unaided operation of the market place, would be unable to afford decent and safe homes. It is a private-sector initiative that invests private and public funds and offers expertise to create housing. This, in turn, spurs neighborhood revitalization.

The Long Island Housing Partnership is the nation’s first not-for-profit, public/private housing development company based solely in the suburbs. The Housing Partnership builds affordable homes for low- and moderate-income Long Islanders, administers down payment assistance programs for Long Island municipalities and employers, rents affordable units to low-income Long Islanders, arranges financing for socially-worthy housing developments, offers technical assistance to community housing groups, provides technical assistance to several Long Island Towns, and provides free mortgage counseling to first-time buyers.

South Wind Village demonstrates a beneficial use of partnerships among government agencies, not-for-profit organizations and private businesses, and displays great creativity in addressing a problem as well as an effective leveraging of resources. Importantly, from the very first stages of planning to its completion, South Wind Village involved the citizens of Bay Shore and the new residents of South Wind Village.