Taco Bell hearing adjourned

Rescheduled for Feb. 11 following community meeting

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The Town of Hempstead Board of Appeals adjourned a hearing on Dec. 10 for a proposed Taco Bell on 1939 Hempstead Turnpike at the request of residents, to allow them to arrange a community meeting with the restaurant’s attorneys to express their concerns.

The Board of Appeals rescheduled the hearing for Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 2 p.m.

Four residents who live nearby the restaurant’s proposed location were at the hearing to voice their opposition. Attorneys John Farrell and Chris Coschignano, of Sahn, Ward, Coschignano & Baker, PLLC, in Uniondale, who represent Taco Bell, both said they would agree to a community meeting.

Liz Mignone, of Marion Drive, a residential street located behind the proposed Taco Bell location, called for the adjournment. She said she has since called the office of Nassau County Legislator Norma Gonsalves, who represents East Meadow, to arrange the meeting, with the hope of having it in the middle of January.

Prior to the hearing, Mignone said a petition signed by some 160 residents was submitted to the town. Their goal, she said, is to urge the Board of Appeals to deny Taco Bell’s application for a drive-through. “I have no problem with the restaurant,” she said. “It is the drive-through and the restaurant hours.”

Nearby residents have cited concerns about noise, pollution, rodents and traffic that a proposed fast-food restaurant might bring to their neighborhood.

The site plan calls for a 2,640-square-foot building on the 21,250-square-foot lot on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike, just east of Eisenhower Park. The vehicle entrance and exit way would be from the same curb cut on Hempstead Turnpike.

The location now holds an abandoned building, last occupied by a Zorn’s restaurant, which went out of business more than two years ago.

Richard Bivone, the owner of RMB Drafting on East Meadow Avenue and a member of the East Meadow Chamber of Commerce, was at last week’s hearing on behalf of president Stephen Haller to express the Chamber’s support for the proposal. “A Taco Bell restaurant would take better care of the property, and also help with the tax rolls,” Haller said. “Every small business you see closed on Hempstead Turnpike is a loss of tax revenue. Who makes that up? Eventually the homeowners.”