Harbor Isle development can proceed

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The Town of Hempstead tried going back to court to keep Posillico Development Company and Blue Island Development from building a 172-unit project on Harbor Isle, but the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division will not hear the town’s latest appeal.

On Oct. 5, the Appellate Division ruled that the town’s effort to prohibit the development of rental residences on the former Cibro oil depot property was “invalid and unenforceable.” The town wanted all of the residences to be sold, and not rented.

Posillico paid $2.4 million for the 11.5-acre former oil storage facility at a bankruptcy auction in 1999. In 2007, Posillico and Blue Island applied to the town board to develop a 172-rental unit property on the vacant land. The development proposal included 140 rental units, 32 condominiums and three boat slips. Posillico President Michael Posillico agreed to clean up the property, which is polluted by oil, with the blessings of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Although the town approved the $70 million project, it added restrictive covenants that stipulated that only condos could be built on the site. Posillico went back to the town in 2010 and again in 2013, asking it to change its ruling, but the town refused.

The Appellate Division ruled that Hempstead’s restrictive covenant was “of no actual and substantial benefit to the town,” and Hempstead officials had “offered no explanation to rebut this showing.”

The project can now move forward. The DEC has approved the property’s Remedial Action Work Plan, part of the state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, and the program has a Dec. 31, 2017, deadline that Posillico must now meet. The estimated cost of the cleanup is $9 million.

Many resident opposed the project, saying they wanted only single-family homes to be built on the property. They claim that the apartments will bring increased traffic and burden local schools. Two small bridges lead from Barnum Isle to Harbor Isle, which is currently occupied only by single-family homes.