By Angela Marshall
Her fellow Board of Trustee members agree that 60 feet is too high, but they believe that reducing the limit to 36 might simply be exchanging one extreme for another. At the board's public work session last Thursday, the majority of the board -- the three Home Rule Party members -- agreed that 48 feet was the best compromise.
As part of the process of updating the village code, the board decided to reduce the number of business and commercial zones from six to three, Business A, B and C. The boundaries of each zone have yet to be decided.
At Thursday's meeting, the board discussed new maximums for heights and lot coverage and new minimums for front, side and rear setbacks. The majority favored assigning 48 feet as the maximum height in both Business A and B zones and 36 ft. in Business C. Business C, also known as Little Town, does not exist in the current code and its boundaries have yet to be decided. It might include portions of Maple and Brower avenues and Long Beach Road.
Bossart was the lone dissenting voice. Fellow Concerned Citizens party member and Trustee Greg Rinn declined to participate in the informal vote, which was taken to give Village Attorney Martha Krisel direction on how to write the revisions so they can be presented at a future public hearing.
Mayor Eugene Murray's suggestion at a previous meeting to make all of Rockville Centre's business and commercial areas north of the train station Business C was taken off the table. Murray also retracted his support for requiring commercial businesses on the ground floors of new apartment buildings in the business zones. He had sided with Bossart on this topic at a previous meeting. They had attended downtown development meetings earlier this year at which requiring commercial ground floors was encouraged.
When Bossart continued to voice her opinion that an apartment developer not wanting a commercial ground floor should have to apply for a special-use permit, the mayor said that Rockville Centre is "becoming the land of no."
Bossart replied that requiring a special-use permit is not telling developers no; it's simply telling them that they "do have recourse" if what they want to do isn't allowed in the code.
The majority of the board -- Rinn, Murray, Trustee Jack Matthews and Deputy Mayor Wayne Lipton -- instructed Krisel to change the legislation from its previous wording. It will now state that a developer wanting commercial space on the ground floor must seek a special-use permit.
The minimum lot size for multi-family-dwelling development will be 15,000 square feet, with the size of the building limited to no more than 40 percent of the size of the lot. All buildings in excess of 10,000 square are already subject to site plan review.
Developer F.J. McCarthy, who wants to build a 24-unit senior-residence apartment building where two houses stand, at 53 and 57 Clinton Ave., attended the meeting. His plans do not call for a commercial business on the ground floor.
Another developer looking to build a four-story apartment complex on Banks Avenue behind the King Kullen supermarket would also be affected by the possible code revisions.
All five board members tentatively agreed that there should be 10-foot front-yard setbacks for businesses in Business A and 15-foot setbacks for apartment buildings or other multi-family residential buildings. Allowing apartments in Business A would be new to the code.
Apartments would also be required to have a five-foot side-yard setback. If the business or apartment would abut homes in residential zones, 20-foot side yards would be required.
Both businesses and multi-family dwellings would need 10-foot rear-yard setbacks. If they would abut homes in residential zones, the setback would increase to 30 feet.
Public hearings on the code revisions are expected to begin in January.
