Members of the Alternate Development Subcommittee, which is comprised of active, local civic leaders and was formed to start to investigate other viable uses for Syosset's Cerro site, held their second meeting in Syosset last week.

The subcommittee is comprised of chairman Warren Church, president of Syosset Groves Civic Association; Todd Fabricant, chairman of the Cerro Wire Coalition; Rosemarie Birofka from South Grove Elementary School PTA; Josephine Costa, owner of La Viola Restaurant in Syosset; Dr. Mark Fierstein, president of Hunting Hill Civic Association; Sonia Grgas, past president of South Grove Elementary School PTA and vice president of Syosset Groves Civic Association; Julie Gropper from Syosset at Birchwood Civic Association; Robin Grossman from Robbins Lane Elementary School PTA; Edward J. Keenan, Jr., commissioner of the Syosset Fire District; Joseph Lorintz, Esq., president United Civic Associations of North Oyster Bay; Carol Meschkow, president of Concerned Citizens of the Plainview- Old Bethpage Community, Inc.; April Neuendorf, member of the Syosset School Board and past president of Syosset Council of PTA's; Tricia Shannon, president of North Syosset Civic Association; Craig Snyder, Esq. vice president of Birchwood Civic Association; Richard Turkisher, president of the Birchwood Civic Association and Dr. Jeffrey Willig, president of Gate Ridge-Plainview Road Civic Association.

Over the next three months, the subcommittee will hear from various developers who are interested in presenting ideas for alternate development on the Cerro Site.

As was stated in previous articles, the site is still owned by the Taubman Company, who has expressed no interest in selling the site. The developers are made aware of the circumstances before they meet with the subcommittee.

At last week's meeting, Jonathan Stein, Operating Partner for Roseland Property Company located in Short Hills, NJ and Larry Florin, Division President for Lennar Corporation located in Weehawken, NJ, made a presentation to the subcommittee.

Roseland Property Company is a full-service real estate organization primarily involved in the development and construction of mixed-use residential properties, focusing on Brownfields, throughout the northeastern United States and Lennar is a national homebuilding company. Approximately 10 months ago, Roseland and Lennar joined together in the Northeast. They contacted the subcommittee with interest in developing the Cerro Site.

The presentation did not focus specifically on what Stein and Lennar thought would fit into Syosset, but more on what their companies have done in the past. According to Stein, once the subcommittee maps out their interests and needs for the site and review all of the studies done on the Cerro Site, then they could be more specific.

"We work with the community in which we are developing to fit in with the character of the neighborhood," said Stein during his power-point presentation.

Florin said that Lennar develops a niche in master planning communities, which is something that Syosset and the Town of Oyster Bay have been trying to do under their Vision 2020 plan.

Members of the subcommittee asked about using union labor for construction. Stein said that it depends on the development, but they could use union labor and have in the past. "We always offer bidding and we are always open to union labor," he said.

"If using union labor is the trend in the community, then we would use union labor," said Florin.

Stein and Florin discussed mixing retail and residential on the site, something they have done in other developments. According to the presentation, when retail is used, it is intended to serve the people within so traffic is not increased, but it is not limited to those people. The same applies to a park - it would be open for the community to enjoy as well. They also said that 1,500 square feet is the average size of retail in these mixed-developments.

According to Stein, after a preliminary look at the Cerro site, he thought stacked townhouses would work well and said that approximately 6-8 units per acre would work. "You don't have to do retail space," said Stein. "This area has a lot of retail already so it might not be necessary there. It would be something you have to explore," he said to the subcommittee.

Subcommittee members asked many questions, including impacts that traffic would have as well as other environmental concerns. "Traffic concerns everyone. Every property and every community is different and we work with experts to study that," said Stein. "We also work closely with the DEC to clean up the site to residential standards."

After the presentation, subcommittee members questioned both Stein and Florin as to their knowledge of the situation regarding the Cerro Site, specifically the land being owned by another developer. "There are many options here and this is a situation that we have been in before," said Florin. "We have in the past partnered-up with the other company, in this case the Taubman Company. This is not an unusual context for us.

"You guys have done an amazing job for the last 10 years to halt a major developer - you should be commended. This is remarkable," said Stein.

Over the next few months, the subcommittee will hear and evaluate other presentations and also formulate ideas as to what they want to see on the property.