Temple Israel to get BZA hearing

For nearly a year Temple Israel of Lawrence has wanted the Village of Lawrence to hear its application for a subdivision variance, and after 10 months of back-and-forth a Board Zoning Appeals hearing has been tentatively scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 27.

The temple — the only reform congregation remaining in the Five Towns — has suffered a decline in its membership and is looking to sell a little more than a half-acre of its front lawn on Central Avenue to offset the loss in revenue.

However, a bit of a battle ensued with the village as the temple filed its application and was asked to submit more documents multiple times. The temple requested a letter of denial from the village and had to file a legal action to get Lawrence to give them that letter. The denial letter triggers the jurisdiction of the village’s BZA.

“The day before we were scheduled to go to court the village issued the denial letter,” said Garrett Gray, the temple’s Melville-based attorney, who is also a member of the congregation. That date was Aug. 8.

In September of last year, the reform temple and Peninsula Public Library signed a letter of intent that had Temple Israel selling the parcel to the library for $2.5 to $3 million if the temple obtained the variance from the village. However, that agreement has ended.

“We no longer have a commitment from the library to move forward with the purchase,” said James Rotenberg, Temple Israel’s president. “That is not to say that at some point in the future the library wouldn’t still be interested.”

The preliminary agreement included a clause that Library trustee Jeffrey Leb called a “cautionary component” that any legal fees incurred by the temple in its pursuit of the subdivision would be shared equally between them through a specific time period. That benchmark was reached and the library didn’t want to incur anymore expenses, Leb said.

“We would still be interested in pursuing this if they got the variance, but we would be one of many entities out there who are interested,” Leb said.

Looking for a new site for the library has been a several-year quest with multiple sites such as Zion Park and near the village’s sewage treatment plant being considered. Zion Park was taken off the table by the village and needed approval from the Long Island Rail Road and the sewage plant land was considered too out of the way by library officials.

The library is planning to replace the current 50-year-old, 13,000-square-foot building at 280 Central Ave. with a three-story, 30,000-square-foot structure. The letter of intent included PPL buying two homes the temple owns on Fulton Street — adjacent to the temple’s campus — and razing the houses to create a 60-spot parking lot.

As Temple Israel plans for its scheduled BZA hearing, Gray said the board will consider the variance by applying several factors, including if there is no adverse affect on the environment, if the subdivision fits in with the neighborhood and if the hardship was self-created.

“We are the last remaining reform temple in the Five Towns and the oldest reform congregation on Long Island (103-years-old) and have been here for a long time and would like to continue for a long time and this is a way for us to do that,” he said.