By Angela Marshall
The hearing will focus on potential environmental impacts the 349-unit complex could have on village services, including water, traffic, electricity, schools and emergency services.
While many village department heads have signed off on the project, Rockville Centre schools Superintendent William H. Johnson still has reservations. He sent a letter to the village outlining his concerns, including his belief that the developer, Chase Partners LLC, has overestimated the tax revenue the project will bring in to the school district. He also said Chase may have underestimated the number of new students a project like this could bring into the district and the cost the district would incur to educate those students.
Chase, which plans to build the apartment on the former Darby Drug site on Banks Avenue north of King Kullen, filed a three-inch-thick bound volume with the Planning Board, outlining its plans and answering questions concerning potential environmental impacts. Chase says the project will generate between 19 and 29 students in the complex. The developer also acknowledged that there could be additional students if villagers sell their homes to young families and move into the complex, which Johnson said could happen. However, Chase also believes this number will be relatively low. A memo from Joseph H. Burgis for Chase states that the experts he spoke to say that less than 5 percent of a given development's occupants come from the community in which it is built.
Chase estimates the impact to the school to be between $345,139 for 19 students and $835,590 for 46. That's roughly $18,165 per student. The developer said this increase would be more than covered by increased property-tax revenue. Chase said the school taxes would jump from their current $398,000 to $1,030,000 once the project is completed.
Johnson, who said these education costs could be "grossly underestimated" if higher enrollment occurs, does not believe the school district will see any increased tax revenue at all. "The school district will not see any increase in tax revenues because of these apartments," Johnson said in his letter. "What will happen is that these apartments will become part of Class 2 and there will be one more complex to share the Class 2 portion of the taxes. This means that persons who own apartment buildings in Rockville Centre will pay lower taxes to the school district. The beneficiaries therefore will be primarily apartment house owners, not single-family homeowners."
If approved, the apartment complex construction would take almost two years to complete. The complex consists of two three-story "old world gothic"-inspired buildings with stone/stucco exteriors and sloped roofs. The north building would have 85 one-bedroom units and 130 two-bedrooms, a total of 215 apartments. The south building would have 51 one-bedrooms and 83 two-bedrooms, totaling 134 apartments.
No zoning variances are needed.
During its initial meetings, the Planning Board asked numerous questions regarding potential traffic increases the project could cause. One of the main access roads to the site is Banks Avenue, which the village owns but has leased to King Kullen and which serves as an entrance to the grocery store's parking lot. There is also an MTA bus station near the proposed complex.
The hearing will be held at Village Hall, 1 College Place, on Aug. 12 at 7:30 p.m.
