Huntington Village: Long Island’s Surprising Green Side
Meredith Taylor
This past weekend’s New York Times Real Estate column “Living In” featured a glimpse of suburban Huntington Village on Long Island. While the storybook downtown and long commute to Penn Station aren’t totally surprising, Huntington’s progressive green initiatives are. Last year, the town became the first in New York State to offer incentives to residents who own hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles. Parking on the street and in the town’s four commuter railroad station parking lots is free for residents with a “Keep Huntington Green” car decal, and they also receive free beach passes. Town Councilman Stuart Besen, a sponsor of the bill, said last year that “town residents who have taken a forward approach by purchasing hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles should be rewarded and I’m very excited that this is something that I could do at the local level.”
Other local sustainable initiatives include a green cleaning campaign to use environment-friendly Green Seal cleaning products at Huntington Town Hall, legislation to change Huntington’s building code to encourage installation of energy-efficient appliances and fixtures in all new residential construction, and public forums on topics like organic gardening and solar power incentives.
- The Heart and Soul of Suburbia (NY Times)
- Town of Huntington Begins 2007 in the Green (Huntington, LI)
Popularity: 10% [?]
Comment by Thanks Huntington on 27 February 2008:
So rich yuppies who can afford hybrids get special treatment while ordinary folks get nothing. I guess that’s “progressive”. This is typical of LI politicos. Government is just a series of dumb gimmicks to give them an excuse to pat themselves on the back via press release. Thanks Huntington.
Comment by Stephen Del Percio on 27 February 2008:
To be fair, as Meredith points out, the town is considering other less sexy sustainable initiatives that include encouraging energy efficiency in residential construction. And handing out a few free parking passes doesn’t seem like such a huge price to pay if it gets folks thinking about conservation.
Comment by Marta Mcilravy on 27 April 2008:
Hello,
My name is Marta Mcilravy and I’m an Independent Shaklee Distributor. After reading your site about going green in Huntington, I was wondering if you would be interested in using some of Shaklee’s Get Clean products to clean your Town Hall. Shaklee is a 52 year old company founded by Dr. Forrest Shaklee. He believed in putting back what we take from the earth. He knew as far back as 1960 what was ahead in regards to our planet and the harm we were doing to it. The most famous and used product is Basic H2 which is Green Seal Certified. It is also know as the first non toxic, biodegradeable, earth friendly and earth day product.
Please visit my website and see what a fabulous company this is.
www.shaklee.net/marta_mcilravy/getclean
Thank you for your time.
Marta Mcilravy