Coastal Services Center

Many of our nation's coastal communities bear the scars of past economic booms as former industrial sites lie abandoned and are tainted by real or perceived contamination. While redeveloping these "brownfields" might economically and visually revitalize numerous urban waterfronts, developers have had few incentives to invest in these blighted areas, choosing instead to build at the suburban fringe which many say is exacerbating sprawl and the loss of natural resources.

The community of Glen Cove is serving as a model for coastal resource managers in New York who are working to help municipalities redevelop degraded waterfronts, says Peter Walsh, coastal resources specialist with the New York Department of State Division of Coastal Resources. Working together, Glen Cove and the Division of Coastal Resources prepared a comprehensive redevelopment strategy for the city's waterfront that has been a catalyst for successful federal, state, and local partnerships, and more than $43 million in public and private investments.

"Simply put, coastal resource managers made it possible for the city of Glen Cove to develop a comprehensive vision that is both environmentally and economically sound, and that could be understood by all the different stakeholders," says Glen Cove Mayor Thomas Suozzi. "When people understand the vision and buy into it, and recognize how it can be used to leverage resources ... they're willing to assist any way that they can. We could have never gotten our plan communicated or developed without the help and assistance" of the Division of Coastal Resources.

Glen Cove is a small city of 25,000 people that sits along one of Long Island's prettiest coasts. Nine of the 10 miles of city shoreline on Long Island Sound and Hempstead Harbor are pristine, featuring 300 acres of nature preserves, three public beaches, and Gold Coast mansions dating from the "Great Gatsby" era of the 1920s. But one mile of waterfront along Glen Cove Creek, which lies in the heart of the city's business district, is now home to two federal Superfund sites, a New York State Inactive Hazardous Waste site, and a number of brownfields.

In addition to the abandoned properties, the city was faced with a waterway that "hadn't been dredged in 30 years, crumbling bulkheads, and a lot of nonpoint source pollution and sediment that was entering the creek unabated," Walsh says. "The city was trying to improve, but they were struggling with all these different issues and trying to deal with quite a few local, county, state, and federal agencies."

In the mid 90s, the Division of Coastal Resources began developing regional programs for the state's coastal areas. The plan developed by the Long Island Sound Coastal Management Program identified three special types of areas-waterfront redevelopment areas, regionally important natural areas, and maritime centers-to "better guide development and resource protection efforts," Walsh explains. Glen Cove was identified as one of three priority areas along Long Island's 314 miles of coastline where waterfront redevelopment should occur. The city also was designated as a historic maritime center.

The city then received a State Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act grant to fund the development of a 179-page master plan that divides 213 acres into seven zones. Numerous community meetings were held to get the public's input into the plan, which provides a vision for transforming the waterfront into a working port that serves as both a tourist destination and an area supporting light industry. "When we sought federal and state support for our waterfront revitalization project," Suozzi says, "we were able to significantly bolster our argument by illustrating how our local plan fit into the regional context."

With the assistance of the Division of Coastal Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, the city held the first of four workshops to which they invited "every potential regulator, grant maker, and stakeholder into a room," Suozzi says. "We talked about our objectives in each of the seven sectors and posed the questions of 'How do we get from point A to point C?' 'What is your agency's role?' 'What approvals do we need from you?' 'How can you help us?' and 'By what date will you deliver on your commitment?'"

Suozzi notes, "The $100,000 we received in grants to develop our planning document for the entire watershed has yielded tens of millions of dollars in federal and state investment relating to environmental cleanup, bulkheading, property acquisition, dredging, and infrastructure improvements." Private development that has resulted includes the opening of a new restaurant near a waterfront walkway, several marinas being able to double their number of slips, and ferry service being established to Connecticut.

"It really has been an effective and successful plan," Walsh concludes.

Kenneth Walker, community specialist with NOAA's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, describes Glen Cove as "a good model that is applicable to other communities.

"There's nothing magic about getting the right people at the right time into a room together, but maybe it's not always the most obvious route for a local government to take when they are trying to take on an ambitious community revitalization initiative."

The real keys to success for Glen Cove, Walker says, were that "the mayor made it his number one issue, so it had a strong local champion, and they got community involvement to develop consensus on how to reuse the waterfront. It was this leadership and one common message of where they wanted to go that made it easier to reach out to state and federal partners. That's what really made it work."

For more information about New York's efforts to support Glen Cove's waterfront revitalization, point your Web browser to www.dos.state.ny.us/. You also may contact Peter Walsh at (518) 474-1845 or e-mail pwalsh@dos.state.ny.us.