By:Angela Marshall
A decision on the controversial case might not come for a while, however. Environmental findings and recommendations by the Nassau County Planning Commission must be produced first.
Chase Partners also ended its boycott of the Planning Board hearings, initiated Sept. 7 after the developer filed suit against the board and village, alleging that the process has taken too long. Representatives of the developer not only attended the Sept. 21 meeting, but made a presentation on the exterior design of its Signature Place apartment complex. However, one of the attorneys representing Chase Partners, David Leno, prefaced his remarks with a statement that the developer is in no way acknowledging the Planning Board's continued jurisdiction in the matter.
The suit, an Article 78 proceeding filed with the New York State Supreme Court, seeks a judgment that would put an end to the the village's site-plan review process and direct the superintendent of buildings to issue a building permit.
Planning Board attorney Gary Fishberg said he would move to dismiss the suit. The return date of the village's response was pushed from Oct. 1 to Oct 15. As part of the litigation, the village's expert, environmental scientist Bob Grover, of Greenman Penderson, has been subpoenaed for a deposition, and Fishberg has moved to quash the subpoena.
Tension was high during the exterior design presentation, as Chase Partners maintained that it had already provided the material months earlier, and board members said they had never heard any of it before.
Once the board saw examples of the stone and stucco facade and learned about plans for heating and cooling vents, the developer was asked whether any buildings would remain on the site after the apartment complex was built to help remediate chemical contamination found last November. During the Sept. 7 meeting, a resident who is experienced in contamination cleanup said such buildings would be necessary, and asked whether they would be located so as not to interfere with fire department vehicle right of way.
Leno said it was premature to speculate on whether such buildings were necessary or where they would be located. "We would like answers," said Planning Board member Ed Oppenheimer. He said he would not "pass on this entire project" until he knew where the buildings would be and how the layout would look. When Leno repeated that he couldn't say whether such buildings would be necessary, Chairwoman Mary Beth Kearns told him that the developers would have to come back before the board if such buildings were needed.
The public was given one final chance to speak on both the site plan and environmental issues connected to the project, and steadfast opponents of the project approached the board with prepared statements, saying the developers had not said anything to assuage their fears that the complex was too big, would bring too much traffic, would tax village services and was not fully accessible to the fire department. They also urged the board to do nothing until a contamination cleanup plan was brought to the state's Department of Environmental Conservation. Andrew Karamouzis, a resident and an attorney hired by his neighbors to represent them, called Chase Partners' lawsuit an attempt to "hold a gun to the head of the Planning Board and the village."
The Planning Board is tentatively scheduled to meet again on Tuesday, Oct. 5, at 7:30 p.m., at Village Hall to produce its statement of findings on the project's environmental-impact review. The statement of findings will be based on the two environmental-impact documents created by Chase Partners, the transcripts and exhibits from the hearings and all correspondence concerning the project. If the board cannot complete the statement of findings by Oct. 5, that meeting will be canceled and a new date set.
The Planning Board's statement of findings can say many things - that the project is fine as planned, for instance, or that it should be smaller. After the statement is released, the board must still wait until the Nassau County Planning Commission announces its position on the project before Planning Board members can vote on whether to approve it.
There is a chance that the Planning Board may be able to vote on Oct. 5. Although the Planning Commission originally told the village that it would not review Signature Place until the Planning Board completed its environmental process, the commission has the proposal on its Sept. 30 calendar.
Comments about this story? AMarshall@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 25.
