Locals challenge development plans
Click here for a Jewish Star editorial: Rip the secrecy off developments
Five Towners who helped defeat plans for a major health care facility at the former Number Six School in Woodmere eight and a half years ago are again campaigning to limit local development. The Community Coalition of the Five Towns says its objective is to mobilize residents and increase awareness of several projects that its members believe could negatively impact the quality of their lives.
“I think we were pretty effective in that campaign,” said Lawrence resident Josh Justic, the coalition’s president. “We learned the value of communicating with the community and the community coming together.”
Both Justic and Woodmere resident Avi Pinto, coalition vice president, said they did not oppose development, but want it to make sense.
“Developers are going to get rich on the backs of residents,” Pinto said. “The development should be done in a way that’s fair for everybody as much as possible. That’s why I got involved.”
Coalition leaders anticipate more traffic being generated in an already high-traffic area, with an impact on local schools, the environment and resources.
In 2014, the coalition spurred a 2-to-1 victory in a public referendum allowing the Lawrence School District to sell the Number Six School — or-iginally designated as the site of a health care facility — to the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach.
The most recent proposed development that has residents upset is the Pearsall project in Cedarhurst. On a stretch of Pearsall that’s larger than two acres, the proposal calls for three buildings, each at least four stories tall, with 112 residential co-op and rental units plus new commercial, light industrial and manufacturing facilities, an underground garage, a shul, and other amenities such as outdoor space with barbecue area and garden.
Other active or proposed developments in the Five Towns include:
•A 422,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse on Rockaway Turnpike on the Nassau side of the city line, that is expected to be operational by December.
•Development of the Woodmere Club in Woodmere, which impacts the villages of Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Woodsburgh. where 284 single-family homes could be built. (A Coastal Conservation District was created by the Town of Hempstead, Lawrence and Woodsburgh in an effort to pare that down — possibly to 59 homes) but a federal lawsuit by the developers against the district is moving forward.
•The possible sale of the former Number Five School at 305 Cedarhurst Ave., a 97,500-building currently being leased by the Shulamith School. While the Lawrence School Board years ago suggested it might sell this 2.56 acres property, it recently advertised it as a development site in real-estate circles without formal local disclosure.
•A five-story building at the intersection of Bayview Avenue and Russell Place in Inwood, with 313 apartments — 250 market-rate units and 63 apartments for tenants with incomes at or below 60 percent of the area’s median income — plus a retail component. The developer’s request for a 25-year payment in lieu of taxes agreement by the Town of Hempstead’s Industrial Development Agency is pending.
•An Inwood-Lawence 11.7 acres “transit-oriented development” site
Mayor Benjamin Weinstock said he understands the concerns of residents, including those in adacent Five Towns communities, because the potential impact takes the form of concentric circles that originate from the site and widen out to a larger area.
Weinstock noted that the section of Pearsall where the development could be built is a blighted area with a vacant building and derelict homes. At the village board’s Aug. 4 meeting, he said the project would generate $6 million for the village in three increments.
“I live here and love the community,” Weinstock said. “I want to make it as good as it was, and better if I can.” He added that the village hired Hauppauge-based Eschbacher Engineering to conduct an independent traffic study to check the developer’s figures, submitted by Cameron Engineering, of Woodbury.
Embroiled in controversy practically since they purchased the Woodmere Club in 2017, New Jersey-based developers Efrem Gerszberg and Robert Weiss are currently suing the Town of Hempstead and the villages of Lawrence and Woodsburgh for $200 million in federal court over the municipalities’ creation of a Coastal Conservation District to limit development of the 118-acre property. Community members established the Five Towns Civic Association to oppose the development of the 113-year-old club.
“Every plan has to be evaluated on its own,” Gerszberg said. “If a plan deals with traffic and with all the infrastructure in a legal and proper manner, then it’s appropriate. If not, then it’s not appropriate.”
He noted that the federal lawsuit is moving forward and said that the court has ruled that the case has merit.
The Community Coalition of the Five Towns has stumped for its position and advertised to register people to receive the group’s posts on Whats App. Justic and Pinto said that no in-person meetings had been scheduled.
A version of this report, by Nassau Herald Editor Jeff Bessen, appeared in this week’s Nassau Herald. The Jewish Star added to this report.
