Eric Alexander

Director

About

Eric Alexander is the Director of Vision Long Island, a regional Smart Growth planning organization. Eric has nearly twenty years experience in housing, transportation, community development and coordinating successful community projects. Specifically, Eric has been a proponent of Smart Growth planning and mixed use development through advocacy efforts on Federal, State, County levels while working with municipalities to develop and implement smart growth policies, regulations, and projects. All told his efforts at Vision Long Island have resulted in acting as a catalyst for over 55 private and 60 public Smart Growth projects. Since joining Vision Long Island (formerly Vision Huntington) Eric has been working to overcome NIMBYism and encourage proactive land use planning decisions through the use of community visionings, and other progressive planning techniques. Eric has led visioning processes, oftentimes called “charrettes”, in the following twenty communities: Central Islip, Hicksville, Huntington, Mastic/Shirley, Coram/Middle Island, Rocky Point, Farmingdale, Shoreham, Mt. Sinai, Bay Shore, Gordon Heights, Oyster Bay, Kings Park, Yaphank, Mastic Beach, Southampton and Lake Ronkonkoma and Farmingville. Each of these projects resulted in a community plan and are all in varying stages of planning and construction. In addition Eric is working on regional planning projects surrounding the Nassau HUB, Long Island 2035, Brookhaven 2030 and the Federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities. In 2002 Eric organized Long Island’s first Smart Growth Awards event and led its first Smart Growth Summit. The Summit, now held annually, has over 1,000 attendees and develops a regional agenda for Smart Growth planning. Over the last fourteen years Eric has made over 1,800 individual and group presentations to nearly seventy five Long Island communities. Eric has been advancing policies and regulations to advance Smart Growth principles through active partnership with the LI Lobby Day Coalition and the LI Business Council. On the Federal & State level he has served on Governor Spitzer’s Transition Team for Smart Growth and serves on Congresswoman McCarthy’s Economic Advisory Committee, the NY Congress for the New Urbanism Executive Committee, the Steering Committee of Empire State Future and the Board of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Locally Eric has served on the Town of Huntington Smart Growth Steering Committee, Suffolk County Smart Growth Committee the Suffolk County Commission for Workforce Housing and the Nassau County Next Generation Housing Committee. He is a graduate of the Energeia Partnership, on the Advisory Board for Newsday’s Green Street LI project and the Board of the LI Coalition for the Homeless. Eric has been listed as one of Long Island’s 100 most influential leaders by the Long Island Business News for three years running. In 2013 he was honored with a LI Real Estate “Leadership” Award by the LI Business News as “Person of the Year” by Northport Patch in 2012, as a “Leader who makes a Difference” by the Hauppauge Industrial Association in 2011, “Business of the Year” by the Hicksville Chamber of Commerce in 2010, a “Graduate of Distinction” by Leadership Huntington in 2010, sustainable development by the Long Island Progressive Coalition in 2008, community planning by the American Planning Association NY Chapter in 2008, Businessperson of the Year by the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce in 2005, the LI Business News 40 under 40 designation in 2003 and the LI Alliance Kairos Award in 1990. Locally Eric is a Northport resident and serves on the Northport Village Merchants Association. In addition he is a volunteer advisor for the Youth Group (YES) of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island..