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Health & Fitness

The Hauppauge Comprehensive Plan Update of 1963

Where our Hauppauge came from....

        Given the citations made by Mark West and Rich Murdocco of the Hauppauge Comprehensive Plan, created by Lee Koppelman and the Hauppauge Civic Association's Planning and Zoning Council, I felt it was incumbent upon me to provide the plan's update from 1963, which I obtained a copy of from the Smithtown Public Library's Long Island Room. It doesn't do the plan complete justice as the last page was in color and the clarity isn't perfect, but I think the message of the plan is still aptly conveyed.

        Here was a snapshot of a community subject to rapid development, quickly changing from a hamlet of village houses, and rural estates to a poster child for suburban expansion. The comprehensive plan sought to maintain some aspects of that original character, namely keeping Route 454 from becoming a highway retail corridor like Jericho Turnpike and endorsing the preservation of significant parkland, specifically Blydenburgh County Park. It sought to lower

        Some of the items which the plan foresaw never came to pass, such as the 347 link directly to the Long Island Expressway and the creation of a school in East Hauppauge on Terry Road. The plan also failed to prevent some things such as the creation of garden apartments off Route 454 between MacArthur Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard, the creation of the Waldbaum's shopping center off Spartan Lane, and the creation of offices and a hotel along Route 454 between Route 111 and Lincoln Boulevard.

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        Still, this plan's success should be measured by the Hauppauge before us today, which is very much reflective of its design, and is better for it. THe plan carried with it the ideas of two salient and historic concepts in community planning: the first being Ebenezer Howard's concept of the Garden City, whereby the residences in a "suburb" would be separated from industries and businesses by buffers of green space and that communities would be separated and defined by greenbelts and natural or agricultural land (Off Long Island this ideal becomes much more visible, particularly in the Midwest), the second concept was Clarence Perry's concept of the neighborhood unit as featuring institutions like schools and churches at its core, businesses and apartments along primary transport corridors, and residences located within a 10 minute walk of the "institutions" (something that was much easier to realize in Hauppauge prior to the closing of Honey Hollow and Whiporwil Elementary schools)

       So, here it is, enjoy it! I've said enough!

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