By Dana Williams
According to a 5th Precinct police report, officers responded to 22 calls and made six arrests at the Courtesy last month for a range of crimes involving drugs, prostitution and robbery. The latest figures bring the hotel’s total for the year to 119 calls and 28 arrests. In 2007 there were 77 arrests at the Courtesy.
“Crime has not taken a vacation [from the Courtesy], and the figures for July are appalling,” Rosalie Norton, president of the West Hempstead Civic Association, said in a letter sent to Town Supervisor Kate Murray last week. “As mentioned in prior letters, and it bears repeating, when will this end?”
For nearly two years, West Hempstead residents have been lobbying to have real estate firm Trammell Crow Residential build a $66 million, 176-unit luxury apartment complex on the 2.7-acre Courtesy site. The developer is in contract to purchase the Courtesy from its owner, Bruce Zwelsky.
The town’s Urban Renewal Plan, a design for the redevelopment of 10.5 acres of blighted land along Hempstead Avenue, including the Courtesy property, has deemed Trammell Crow’s proposal as “too dense” at 65 units per acre. The plan also requires the town to acquire properties through eminent domain, and is expected to delay the Courtesy’s closure for several years.
By adopting the URP in January, the town blocked the private sale of the Courtesy to Trammell Crow, and residents are now waiting for a town committee to choose a developer for the URP.
The latest police update on the Courtesy has angered many residents, who say that negotiating a density agreement with Trammell Crow would immediately end the Courtesy saga. In another letter to Murray, resident Joseph Azose wrote that the hotel needs to be “closed and sold immediately,” before someone is seriously hurt or even killed.
“I’m writing on behalf of the next victim of a serious crime at the Courtesy Hotel,” Azose wrote. “How do you tell that person you moved a little too slow in shutting down that hotel? That person won’t be brought much comfort when you say to him, ‘Please be patient, eminent domain takes time.’ Terms like density, zoning and Urban Renewal all mean little to such a person.”
State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and Assemblyman Thomas Alfano (R-Franklin Square), who both represent West Hempstead, also sent a letter to Murray on July 21, arguing for the hotel’s “immediate closure and redevelopment.” Murray responded to that letter the following day by asking for Skelos’s and Alfano’s help in the town’s negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to purchase a 1-acre parcel of land next to the Courtesy that is owned by the MTA. If the town purchases the property, town officials said, it would increase the size of the Courtesy site to 3.7 acres, and Trammell Crow’s proposed development would then be in compliance with the town’s density limit of 45 units per acre.
Many residents contend, however, that it is the town’s responsibility to rid the area of the crime-ridden Courtesy. Resident Seth Bykofsky called Murray’s response to the Skelos-Alfano letter “disingenuous” and argued that Murray should not be asking for state help for a problem that she has the authority to solve. “Now, in what can only be described as the ultimate in chutzpah, our town supervisor looks to Albany to do what she has been empowered to do since her very first day in office: tear down that hotel,” Bykofsky said. “If Supervisor Murray is serious about closing the Courtesy and redeveloping West Hempstead’s eastern gateway in accord with the community’s wishes ... she should ratify the sale of the Courtesy to Trammell-Crow.”
Town officials have not announced when they will choose a developer for the URP, or when they will make a decision about the MTA property sale.
Comments about this story? DWilliams@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 205.
