“The decision was good for the community,” Nicholas Mela, a retired NYPD officer who lives on Island Parkway, adjacent to the development site, and testified in opposition to the proposal at the October hearing, said this week. “We didn’t need it, and we don’t want it. I think that Posillico knew this was going to happen, but he had to try to bring rental units in because they were all that he could sell.”

Mela added that he would like to see “expensive homes on the site — an extension of what the community already has.”

The theme that renters have no stake in the community in which they live if they don’t own a home there is a reoccurring one, but is plain wrong.

In New York City, some of the most ardent community activists are renters.

It is time for those who live in Nassau County to understand that keeping out those who cannot afford homes, for whatever the reason, is wrongheaded and often leads to driving out both the young and the old. It is time for a new paradigm that allows them to stay in their communities.