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Overcast Apartments in residential areas?
Residents critical of possible precedent-setting rezoning law
Some residents are speaking out against a proposed law that will be discussed at a Board of Trustees meeting next week, which they say could set a dangerous precedent by allowing apartments to be built in residential areas of the village.
Local Law 1406, if passed, would rezone the property of 62 Rockaway Ave. from Residence A to Residence B, allowing apartment buildings to be built where there is now a two-family home. It’s a move, residents claim, by a developer who is looking to build six apartments on the half-acre site. (Citing the upcoming discussion on May 5 at 7 p.m. at Village Hall, village officials would not comment.)
“The message that this sends, not just in our neighborhood, but anywhere in the village where people live near an apartment building, is your single-family lot can be rezoned for apartments,” said Larry Levy, who lives in an apartment complex on Park Avenue, next to the lot. “I don’t see this as a local, [not-in-my-backyard] reaction to progress.”
Levy said he is worried that if the board approves the rezoning, it could set a precedent for other developers who want to build in the village. “Residence B allows apartments, co-ops and condominiums,” he said. “It’s a commercial designation that allows for very high density. When this area was rezoned 30 some-odd years ago to allow our building and the others, there was a hard line drawn from Residence B and the rest of suburbia, which is Residence A.”
Under current village code, Residence A is limited to single-family homes, unless a variance is acquired. The Rockaway Avenue property is a two-family home that was grandfathered in when the code was changed.
Residents of the area say they are concerned about what adding more apartments — and the accompanying vehicles — would mean for their street, which, they add, is already unsafe. The property is at the intersection of Rockaway Avenue, Woods Avenue and Park Place, which has no traffic lights and only two stop signs.
“This is probably one of the worst places of all to put anything more than a two-family house,” said Kevin Ryan, a former member of the village’s Board of Zoning Appeals who lives across the street from the property.
