Stillwell Woods Park Survey Drags On After 6 Months

More than 3,300 residents have signed a petition demanding answers about Stillwell Woods Park and Preserve, and after months of waiting, those answers still haven’t arrived.

The Town of Oyster Bay announced a survey of the 287-acre Stillwell Woods Park and Preserve back in September 2025. Six months later, that survey remains unfinished, and at least one longtime advocate is demanding the town board explain why.

Ron Ganz, a Syosset resident who says he has fought for Stillwell Woods for 25 years, confronted the Oyster Bay Town Board during the public comment period of its March 10 meeting. Ganz launched the “Save Our Stillwell Woods Preserve” petition, which has now gathered more than 3,300 signatures from residents who want the 287-acre property kept exactly as it is.

The stakes are real. Nassau County’s legislature unanimously approved transferring the preserve to the town earlier in 2025, a move that came with a promise of $12 million in upgrades. But transfer agreements and upgrade promises don’t automatically protect the land from future development. The petition states that moving the property from county to town control “will open an unprecedented door to decimating wildlife habitat and picturesque trail vistas in a perpetual preserve that rests atop a special groundwater protection area.”

Taxpayers should pay attention to that last part. A special groundwater protection area sits beneath this preserve. Development or degradation of that land doesn’t just cost residents a park. It creates long-term risk for the water supply that serves surrounding communities, a liability that would ultimately fall on property owners across Nassau County.

Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino told the board that work on the survey continues and the town’s goal has been protection, not development. “We’re not looking to develop, we’re not looking to change, we’re looking to preserve,” Saladino said at the meeting.

Ganz wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He pushed back on multiple fronts. He said garbage cleanup on the property has been inadequate. He also said a section of wooded land that was supposed to carry protected status was cleared, though Saladino denied the town had cleared any wooded area. Ganz further noted that no definitive boundary markings currently separate the athletic fields from the preserve itself, a significant problem when the whole point of a survey is to establish exactly where one use ends and another begins.

The survey’s slow progress raises a legitimate question: who is accountable for the timeline, and what does the delay cost? Without clear boundaries documented in a completed survey, there is no enforceable line separating preserved woodland from land that could be repurposed. Every month the survey drags on is another month without that protection on paper.

Ganz also disclosed details from a July 2025 meeting with Oyster Bay’s legal representatives. He said town officials told him Nassau County no longer wanted to invest in the athletic fields, which drove the transfer decision. That framing matters. If the county transferred the property primarily to shed a financial burden rather than to strengthen conservation, residents should know that, and they should know exactly what obligations the town accepted in exchange for the $12 million upgrade commitment.

One resident’s message, read aloud by Ganz at the meeting, captured what many Long Islanders are feeling: “Undeveloped woodland is becoming exceedingly rare as more land is converted to housing, commercial uses and infrastructure.”

Long Island has lost open space at a steady pace for decades. Nassau County has almost no undeveloped land left. A 287-acre preserve resting above a protected aquifer, ringed by suburban development, is not a minor asset. It is a finite one.

The town has the $12 million transfer agreement, the supervisor’s stated commitment to preservation, and 3,300 residents watching closely. What it doesn’t have yet is a finished survey. Until that survey is complete, the boundary between protected land and everything else remains, at best, informal.

That’s not good enough for the residents who depend on this property, or for the water supply beneath it.