Peninsula Public Library still seeking new site

A proposal to relocate the Peninsula Public Library to a site near Zion Park, which has been under consideration for five years, has finally been turned aside: Village of Lawrence trustees have voted against selling the property to the library, according to Mayor Martin Oliner.

The decision, Oliner said, came as part of his push to de-clutter the village docket by dispensing with old business within 45 days of his first day in office, July 5.

The PPL offered $700,000 last October for the 9,000-square-foot parcel adjacent to the Lawrence Long Island Rail Road station and Zion Park behind the train station. According to an appraisal done by PPL officials about two and a half years ago, the property was valued at $475,000, the library board's vice president, Joan Lepelstat, said.

The PPL was hoping to build a 27,000-square-foot library facility in the municipal parking lot adjacent to the park, which is owned by the village. The current library, at 280 Central Ave. in Lawrence, covers 13,500 square feet. Serving some 34,000 people, the PPL has .38 square feet per capita — the smallest space per capita of any library in the Nassau County Library System, according to a 2008 report issued by the system.

The library has 17,000 registered library cardholders, according to Lepelstat, and just 22 parking spots. Lepelstat said she is concerned that, having issued 1,000 new juvenile library cards in the past 18 months, the facility will not be able to accommodate the demand.

The trustees say they would like to build a state-of-the-art facility that could host more activities and offer more services, ranging from theatrical events to lectures to flu shots.

The current library's community room has a capacity of only 99 people. Lepelstat described the children's room as "woefully inadequate," and said that new technology, like computers, is without space as well.

Throughout the prolonged decision-making process, Lepelstat expressed frustration at the lack of response from village trustees. Oliner attributed the delay to indecisiveness.

Last August, trustees unanimously voted down a motion not to sell the land near the train station under any circumstances. The motion was proposed — and then opposed — by Trustee Michael Fragin to demonstrate that under some circumstances, the village would be amenable to the sale of the property to the library.

The terms under which a sale would be feasible, from the board's perspective, were not addressed at the time. "You gotta dedicate parking — a parking lot — in a sensible way," Oliner said.

He said he believed the site would not have been appropriate for a new library or parking lot, and instead would have been a "massive mess." "In our view, there isn't enough land for the village to continue its parking facility at the railroad and [for] a library to be built there," Oliner said after the June 30 vote not to sell.

"The notion of building by Zion Park without infringing on the park is, in our view, impossible," he added. "We're not willing to give up the park." Oliner said he believes any acrimony between the village and library boards was ended when the decision was finally made.

When reached for comment, Lepelstat said she had not heard about the decision, and would have preferred to find out about it from the trustees rather than the Herald.

She said earlier this year that since the PPL's plans included using undeveloped land at the train station, a new library would not affect the number of parking spots for commuters and would include adequate parking for library patrons. The new facility would have taken up 30 parking spaces, but under the PPL's plan, 54 spaces would have been added next to the train station.

"We've given them lots of alternatives," Oliner said, explaining that they included the sale by the village of a 3-acre sewage treatment site near Rock Hall Road and the Nassau Expressway. He also said that the village board would like to keep a future PPL within the Village of Lawrence, and would be willing to grant "any variance," including additional street parking.

Oliner suggested a four-story facility with additional parking under a structural overhang stabilized by stilted supports.

Lepelstat said that a structure on stilts would be prohibitively expensive, and that a four-story building would be difficult for seniors, who are a large client base for the library, to use. She said that the trustees are looking at other potential sites in the area.

Library board President Joseph Fuller said he could not give a price range for the land acquisition. "We're not going to spend $20 million, and I don't think we're going to spend $200,000," Fuller said.

He explained that the library board would not have a more precise range until a site is located and preliminary negotiations begin. The cost of the property, while significant, is not the major cost of building a new library, Fuller said.

A bond vote will go before the public once a parcel is located and a budget can be formulated, he added. A referendum that would have enabled the PPL to construct a new facility on Rockaway Turnpike in Cedarhurst failed in 1997.

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