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Michael Posillico-Restoring brownfields

March 4, 2005 @ 12:00 am EST


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 Another friday morning, another stimulating LIMBA session, worth rising early for.  Today we had Michael Posillico speak on the utilization of Brownfields sites as starting points for redevelopment.  Michael, a scion of one of the families that built out the island, has his own firm, Blue Water Environmental, specializing in remediation of these sites.  Along with the recent Rauch Long Island Index report, and Senator Clinton’s meeting on the housing problem here, density, one of the third rails of LI politics, looks like it may be starting to have its voltage turned down.
Michael spoke at length about the need to educate our community and encourage leadership on this issue among our government reps.  He gave us some detail on the scope of the Glen Cove project that is underway and the degree of co-ordination necessary among the diverse federal and state agencies that have hands in environmental projects.  Michael sits on the board of Vision Long Island, one of the foremost advocates of planning out here.

Now that more and more open space is being taken off the market, the cheapest raw material for building will be brownfields sites.  Density must be increased on these sites in order to make it economically feasible to build..  Without acceptance of higher density done well, Long Island is doomed to stagnation.  We need local leaders that are willing to be political risk-takers in this.  First among them is Tom Suozzi over in Nassau, but he has no bench on his team. Yet.