Improvements coming to Island Park

The Island Park Business and Residential Chamber held an informational meeting on Feb. 12, with presentations by Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino, Nassau County Legislator Denise Ford, and representatives of the Beach to Bay organization. The speakers touched on town and village improvements, remaining problems after Sandy, and the loss of Long Beach Hospital.

Santino reported on the $2.7 million in improvements to Shell Creek Park. This spring the park will have a new bulkhead, new walkways and railings, new fishing bay stations, better lighting and new benches.The town will be repaving Fort Hamilton Avenue and Vanderbilt Place, with new curbs and new sidewalk cuts for handicapped access, Santino said.

He announced that the $49 million Costco project in Oceanside has been approved by the town. A new 151,000-square-foot store will be constructed at the site of a former oil storage facility at the corner of Daly Boulevard and Hampton Road. “You are taking a piece of property that has been fallow for many years, and making it tax generating. That will create jobs,” Santino said. “It will attract traffic, and that might generate some additional commerce for the surrounding area.”

He praised the workers who have cleaned up the snow this winter, and reminded residents to get their vehicles off the streets when it snows so those workers can plow.

Ford said that the county would be sending out a request for proposals on the Austin Boulevard improvement project. The county has been studying traffic and accidents on the road for years, and finally came up with a plan that calls for sidewalk bump-outs, some medians, better markings on the road, and more traffic lights. Ford said she would be asking the transportation department why new traffic signals are not yet up at the intersection of Austin Road and Kingston Boulevard.

After complaints from residents, Ford said that the county was working on legislation to require businesses to shovel their walks after snowstorms. She explained that one of the sticking points was who would enforce such a law. Since the county has no department that would do so, she said, it would be up to the county fire marshal.