The Zoning Board of Appeals renewed its hearing on the future of the former Hebrew Academy of Long Beach building on Sept. 24, considering community members’ concerns as well as a rebuttal from the developer.
The dilapidated property at 530 W. Broadway is the proposed site of an eight-story development with 106 condominium units. Developer Kurt Wittek’s 73rd Meridian Partners LLC is seeking variances from city zoning limitations on height, building area — the portion of a lot that a building can occupy — front yards, side yards and density.
David Wortman, a senior environmental manager with the engineering consulting firm, VHB, and an environmental consultant for the developer, said the building would measure 85 feet from ground level to its ceiling, with another 3½ feet of low walls on the roof’s perimeter, per city code. Its height, he added, includes mandated flood elevation — 15 feet above sea level, a Federal Emergency Management Agency requirement — and a city freeboard requirement of 3 feet, in addition to the structure itself.
Board Chairman Rocco Morelli said the developers could build a building with a maximum height of 58 feet without a variance from the board. Morelli added that, with code requirements from FEMA, the proposed building would be 88.5 feet tall.
Lauren Weishahn, a professional fire protection engineer and president of the co-op board at Seaview Terrace, a neighboring building on West Broadway, raised fire-safety and property-protection concerns about the proposed development. Its two-story, open-air garage, Weishahn said, could require a dry-pipe sprinkler system, which can take up to 60 seconds to activate, time enough for a fire to spread. And allowing the garage to abut the boardwalk, she added, would create a potential pathway for fire to spread from the development to the boardwalk and nearby buildings.
As a stopgap, Weishahn offered a potential safety buffer: a water curtain sprinkler system, which prevents fire from spreading.
As part of his rebuttal, Wittek said that abutting the boardwalk would allow the use of 500 feet along the property line for parking spaces, garbage collection and maintenance, while creating a seamless connection between the development and the boardwalk.
Addressing potential strain on the city infrastructure, Wittek said that all necessary city agencies would need to sign off on the building plans, pending the zoning board’s approval.
Wittek noted that the HALB building is situated between properties developed at greater scale, and said that the site’s zoning designation reflects the historical presence of the former school building rather than the physical characteristics of the neighboring buildings.
“We thought that there was a fairly logical argument to be made that when the rezoning, or the citywide rezone, took place in ’87, that the presence of HALB in the location between Washington and 560 [West Broadway] played a role in where the city drew the line between the K and the L zones,” Wittek said. “That was a part of our thinking and logic … and we think that what we’re really asking in the variances is reasonable in the context of the neighborhood.”
The city’s deputy corporation counsel, Joseph Lupo, said the board is not required to vote on the proposal at its next meeting, which is scheduled for Oct. 22. According to state law, Lupo said, the board has 62 days to decide the matter.
Morelli said the appeal would be left open.
