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Campani and Schwarting Architects

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Architect Michael Schwarting presents during a climate resilience forum at Port Jefferson Village Hall on April 5. File photo by Raymond Janis
By Aidan Johnson

Port Jefferson is known for its rich history. Many of its buildings have designated placards that show how they fit into the village’s unique story. However, the newer buildings have just as much of a story to tell, thanks to Michael Schwarting.

For decades, he has worked as an architect, helping to shape the identity of the local area.

Schwarting knew he wanted to be an architect from the time he was in high school. He has served as a professor at Columbia University and the New York Institute of Technology. Now, he is retiring after 50 years of teaching architecture and urban design and from the latter he will be a professor emeritus.

While teaching at Columbia, Schwarting met his wife, Frances Campani.

“I had met her when I was teaching at Columbia, but she wasn’t my student, and I had actually hired her to teach at New York Institute of Technology when I was a chairperson there,” Schwarting said in a phone interview.

‘It’s really been quite wonderful to be in a town where you could really be connected to everything that’s going on and be involved in important public things.’

— Michael Schwarting

Schwarting and Campani were married in 2000 and opened Campani and Schwarting Architects.

“Frances had been living for some years in Port Jefferson and practicing on her own, and we combined to make Campani and Schwarting,” he said.

Schwarting has enjoyed working with his wife at their firm and says that it isn’t rare for firms to have husband-and-wife teams. 

Together, Schwarting and Campani have striven to keep the character of Port Jefferson and its surrounding towns alive.

“I think that’s one of the really gratifying things,” he explained. “It’s really been quite wonderful to be in a town where you could really be connected to everything that’s going on and be involved in important public things,” he added.

One such project that Schwarting and his firm designed was Heritage Park in Mount Sinai, colloquially known as the Wedge, in the early 2000s.

“That was a wonderful project, because the Mount Sinai community organization was really wonderful to work with,” he said.

“It started out with a project that they came to us about when we were teaching to have our students do some design ideas, which were presented to the community, and that evolved into being more realistic than the students usually are,” Schwarting elaborated.

One of his favorite memories and most important projects was the work done for Port Jefferson’s harbor front. While he was the director of an urban design program at NYIT, he had his students present their plans for the harbor at one of the village meetings.

Even though the plans were all extravagant, the mayor was still excited by the presentation, and asked them to continue working on it.

“And that sort of turned into a grant the village got to study the harbor front, and we made this harbor front plan that was part of the village comprehensive plan,” Schwarting said. 

“We finished it in 2014 and it … was combined with a lot of our work on village projects, but that one is the one that we’re still kind of referencing in trying to deal with the stormwater mitigation and also rising tides, which are right there in the village harbor.”

While the mitigation efforts are difficult due to Port Jefferson’s natural flooding, which has been exacerbated by the parking lots and asphalt being put over ground that once absorbed the water, Schwarting says that they are “slowly uncovering all kinds of possibilities to do natural storm surge mitigation.”

Schwarting has been recognized for his work, and has received multiple American Institute of Architecture awards for places such as the mixed-use building on Main Street at Mill Creek Road.

While he may be retiring from teaching, Schwarting will still be going full steam with the grant for flood mitigation and will continue to help the hamlets and villages within Brookhaven keep their unique aesthetics.

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Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden, left, Michael Schwarting, partner of Campani and Schwarting Architects, center, and trustee Rebecca Kassay. Photos by Raymond Janis

Between rising sea levels, more frequent and intense storms and a changing climate, the Village of Port Jefferson is also addressing longstanding flooding concerns.

Public officials, architects and residents gathered at Village Hall on Wednesday, April 5, sharing updated findings of the ongoing village Climate Resilience Plan in a community workshop. With water targeting the village from all angles, data is being used to develop new intervention strategies.

“The Village of Port Jefferson, Drowned Meadow if you will [the village’s original name], has had unending issues with flooding as a result of topography, tides, runoff, rains, storms, a shallow water table and many other issues,” said Deputy Mayor Kathianne Snaden. “I believe tonight’s workshop will be extremely helpful in moving Port Jefferson toward the ability to implement a responsible and solid resiliency plan.”

Trustee Rebecca Kassay, the village’s sustainability commissioner, updated the public on the status of the Project Advisory Committee. Composed of residents, contractors, Conservation Advisory Council members and Amani Hosein, legislative aide to Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook), the PAC is pursuing the Climate Resilience Plan for the village with a focus on flooding.

The study is made possible by an $82,500 grant from the New York State Department of State to fund the creation of the Port Jeff plan. Michael Schwarting is a partner of the local Campani and Schwarting Architects, one of the firms hired to carry out various tasks associated with the grant. During the meeting, he updated the public on the study’s findings.

Flooding: an Achilles’ heel

Schwarting analyzed Port Jeff’s long history of flooding using historical aerial photographs and maps. He identified various hidden water bodies, such as Crystal Lake near the fire station and other creeks and streams, flowing beneath the existing built environment in Lower Port.

“The maps tell us a good deal about the conditions, and what we know is that it’s all still there,” he said. “That water is underground, and it doesn’t go away.”

Schwarting said three factors work to exacerbate flooding conditions: rising tides, waters below the surface and low-lying topography. “Those three things interact with one another to cause the problems that we’ve been having in the past, are still having and will have in a worse way, according to predictions,” the architect said.

The village is simultaneously afflicted by water from above, with projections for more frequent and intense precipitation events due to climate change. “The prediction is that the storms are going to increase,” Schwarting said, adding that as global sea levels rise, Port Jeff Harbor is projected to begin spilling over into much of the downtown business district.

Potential solutions 

Despite the challenges ahead, Schwarting maintained that there are some natural remedies to help counteract these threats.

Storm drainage systems and rain gardens, for example, are already in place, collecting and channeling some of the stormwater load into the ground. Bioswales, bioretention planters and permeable pavement systems offer other modes of stormwater discharge and filtration, assigning it a reuse function as well.

The architect also proposed transitioning hardscape surfaces along the harbor, such as the Town of Brookhaven parking lot, as green space, which could add scenic value while acting as a floodwater sponge.

The next stages of the study will involve collecting more resident feedback and defining projects worth public consideration. Schwarting said a similar meeting would take place as those phases progress.

“We will start to move toward solving the problem now that we have spent quite a bit of time understanding the problem,” Schwarting said.

Kassay acknowledged the complexities of the flooding question, referring to these initial findings as “a little overwhelming.” Despite this, she maintained that planning and intervention remain the proper path forward.

“The only thing worse than digging into this problem is to ignore it because it’s happening, whether or not we do something,” she said. “We really need to come together to prioritize, make these decisions and support this work so that it is guided toward the result that you wish to see as a community.”

 

 

To view the full presentation and the Q&A portion of the meeting, see video above. To respond to the Port Jefferson Village Climate Resilience Survey, scan the QR code.

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Pixabay photo

Can we trust the Suffolk County Legislature?

We have had a “clean water” sales tax for years. When last I looked both Suffolk County and New York State took that “clean water” sales tax money and put it into their general budgets. Suffolk County was taken to court where it lost and was ordered to replace the improperly taken money. Suffolk then claimed this money was needed to offset the costs of COVID-19, won a referendum and never truly repaid this money. I call this legalized “stealing.”

Now we are being asked to increase and extend this legalized “stealing” [through a 1/8-cent county sales tax increase to fund water quality improvement projects, subject to a mandatory referendum]. Additionally, we are being asked to provide politically well-connected persons with positions as “a 17-member wastewater management district board of trustees” to administer this money.

We are told there will be one, countywide, sewer district with “zones of assessment.” Taxes collected within an established zone of assessment would be required to be kept segregated from taxes collected in other zones of assessment, except upon approval by the county Legislature on the recommendation of the district board of trustees.

Can we trust the Suffolk County Legislature? What do you think?

Francis G. Gibbons Sr.

Terryville

Dog owners should respect a neighborhood park

Frank Melville Memorial Park in Setauket is a glorious place for all community members to enjoy year-round. It is particularly lovely in the spring when the trees are budding, the swans are nesting, the turtles are hanging out on the logs, the flowers are blooming, and people are emerging from their winter hibernation to walk the paths available for our enjoyment. I am one of those people, a community member who loves to bring her friendly chocolate Lab out for a walk on a regular basis. 

As a responsible dog owner, and more so, a considerate person, I take it upon myself to clean up after my large dog when he decides to do his business on park grounds. Sadly, and disgustingly, there are several individuals who have decided that they are above this inconvenient task and feel it is proper protocol to leave their piles wherever they may land so that others are subjected to not only the sight, but the aroma of their pets’ feces. Despite the fact that the park has not one, not two, but three receptacles and poop bag dispensaries, these individuals cannot be bothered to do what a respectful, unselfish person should do. Today was actually my favorite display as one person had taken it upon themself to pick up the poop, and then left the full bag in the middle of the grass adjacent to the pond. Perhaps this was meant to enhance the view? Seriously, what is wrong with you?

The park has several signs stating that if your dog is unleashed you will be banned from the park. The same standard needs to be upheld for those who choose to befoul these grounds with dog excrement. Besides being unsanitary, it is unfair to those who use the park responsibly and have the decency to leash and clean up after their pets. If you refuse to abide by common courtesy, stay home.

Stefanie Werner

East Setauket

Putting the park into parking in Port Jeff Village

The parking problem has persisted since the noted Long Island planner, Lee Koppelman, made Port Jefferson’s first village plan in 1965. Multiple updates continued to note this problem, including the 2030 Comprehensive Plan Update. 

As the village has increased parking capacity with more area and asphalt devoted to off-street parking, the less it has felt like an intimate village. Finding a spot, and the walk from your car — through other cars — to Main Street is not a pleasant start to a visit. In the planning to accommodate the car, the harbor front was converted from shipbuilding to parking, absurdly giving the car the best view of the harbor.

In 2006, sponsored by the BID, supported by the Village of Port Jefferson, we presented to the village community the concept of “Putting the Park into Parking” — as seen on the front page of this paper in 2006. The concept was to make a park on the harbor front and move the parking to a parking structure behind Main Street, replacing the asphalt wasteland with scaled-back street mews walks.

With rising tide predictions, the cars should be replaced — before they go under — with a sponge sustainable functioning education park. Parking is just one concern for quality of life in our village.

Michael Schwarting

Campani and Schwarting Architects

Port Jefferson

Uphold democracy by attending the April 3 village board meeting

When we think of dying democracies, we think of faraway lands, where democracies are overthrown by a military coup — like Myanmar in 2021 — or by rampant corruption and fraud, as in Haiti today. But there is a slower blight democracies die from: a gradual loss of trust in the electoral system. We can see that in our own backyard when local officials ignore and thus thwart the will of the majority. People still have the right to vote, but they no longer bother to do so. 

This fate threatens the Village of Port Jefferson today. We have some 6,000 registered voters in the village. Yet only about 1,200 vote in the mayoral election and even fewer for trustees. The current officers were elected with fewer than a thousand votes each in 2021 and 2022. 

Why is this? The residents have seen issue after issue decided by the Board of Trustees without considering the input of voters. The residents no longer even hope for a voice in village decisions.

Such recent decisions include building of apartment complexes in Upper and Lower Port despite strong opposition from residents; the $10 million bond that was floated to fund the “shield” solution to East Beach bluff erosion; and the parking lot built on the newly cleared forest at Mather Hospital.

But just last week, the Port Jefferson Board of Trustees added the keystone to the arch of despair that has developed over the years. The board and mayor unilaterally extended their terms of office from two years to four with no public debate whatsoever. Whether that extension would be bad or good for the village is not the issue. The issue is that, once again, the village residents’ rightful expectation that their will would be considered in their village government’s decisions was quashed. 

Village residents voted to incorporate as a village because we wanted to have self-governance, to make our own decisions about things that affect us the most. But this is now not the case.

As representatives of the Civic Association of Port Jefferson, we strongly urge the Board of Trustees, in their April 3 meeting, to rescind the undemocratic resolution to extend their terms they made at their last meeting.

We also urge the residents of Port Jefferson to show up at 6 p.m. at the April 3 board meeting at the Village Hall to express their disapproval. Don’t let democracy in our village die the death of apathy.

Ana Hozyainova, President

Holly Fils-Aime, Vice President

Port Jefferson Civic Association

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