Suffolk To Open New Path For Business Expansion

Suffolk County is preparing to launch a new sanitary credit program aimed at making it easier and less expensive for small businesses to expand without relying exclusively on the Pine Barrens Credit Program.

Legislator Jim Mazzarella, chairman of the Legislature’s Economic Development, Planning & Housing Committee, said the initiative would give businesses another avenue for obtaining the sanitary capacity needed for expansion.

“The new sanitary program that we’re working on in Suffolk County is for our small businesses and downtown areas that need to expand and need to get sanitary credits,” Mazzarella said.

Under the plan, businesses will be able to purchase sanitary credits directly from the county rather than obtaining Pine Barrens credits, which Mazzarella said can be costly.

“It’s very expensive for businesses to do it that way,” he said. “We are going to provide businesses relief by taking our own sanitary credits and making them available.”

The existing system grew out of the landmark 1993 Long Island Pine Barrens Protection Act, adopted following years of battles over development and preservation of the environmentally sensitive region. The law led to the 1995 Central Pine Barrens Comprehensive Land Use Plan and its transfer-of-development-rights program.

Rather than simply prohibiting development, the system allows development rights from protected Pine Barrens properties to be transferred elsewhere, compensating landowners while steering growth away from environmentally sensitive areas. Pine Barrens credits can also be used to satisfy Suffolk County sanitary-flow requirements, with one credit generally representing 300 gallons of wastewater flow per day.

Mazzarella said the county’s new program would preserve environmental safeguards while giving businesses another option.

“We want to retain our businesses, especially our small businesses in our downtowns, and preclude them from having to leave our area,” he said, citing a Central Islip manufacturer that warned it could leave Long Island without additional sanitary capacity.

Mazzarella has seen the connection between wastewater capacity and economic development firsthand in his district, where the Forge River Watershed Sewer District is connecting homes and businesses in the Mastic-Shirley area.

“We know one thing about sewers: We know they protect the environment,” Mazzarella said. But because sewers cannot economically reach every downtown, he said the new credit program provides another way for businesses “to expand their businesses and stay here in Suffolk County.”