By Andrew Coen
All four Lawrence trustees and mayor Dr. Jack Levenbrown went on record at the Feb. 6 village board meeting as being in support of the idea to have a new library facility in Zion Park, as long as concerns like parking and traffic are addressed. Village trustees would need to agree to sell or lease Zion Park to the library, since it is village-owned property. The question of how the trustees stood on the proposed library plan was raised by Lawrence Association president Myrna Breitman, who's civic group has lobbied hard for an improved PPL facility.
"I think [the PPL's] idea is great," said Lawrence deputy mayor Simon Felder during the meeting, adding that as long as outstanding questions are answered, he will back the proposal.
The current library building, at 280 Central Ave. in Lawrence, was built in the early 1960s, with only one narrow driveway on the east side of the building where cars both enter and exit, creating the potential for serious accidents, according to library officials. The facility also has limited parking and is too small to expand certain services, officials said.
The proposed library would be a 27,000-square-foot, two-story structure - twice as large as the current facility - that would be situated at the northwest corner of the park, which neighbors the Lawrence Long Island Railroad station and is a few yards from the Inwood and North Lawrence border. The current library totals 13,500 square feet and is ranked the smallest in the county by the Nassau County Library System.
Lawrence trustee Joel Mael said that with a history in the village of struggling to sell or lease public land, he would be more than open to having a library move to Zion Park. "My view is that I absolutely will consider [Zion Park] for purposes of public use which is a library," said Mael. "I have absolutely no objection to doing that."
Trustee Ed Klar said the modified proposal was much improved, and as a result, he has an open mind toward the Zion Park move. "The second presentation certainly brings us much closer to something that could be done." said Klar. "We definitely have moved off a no to a maybe."
Trustee Martin Oliner, who previously endorsed the Zion Park plan at the Jan. 12 village board meeting, echoed his endorsement of the plan at the Feb. 6 meeting, saying, "you've heard from me."
In addition to the village trustees agreeing to provide Zion Park to the PPL, the Lawrence school board, which owns the property at the current PPL facility, would need to agree to sell or lease the facility. PPL officials hope that some of the proceeds the school board would receive from selling or leasing their current building would be used to fund the move to Zion Park. The school board is currently soliciting bids through its brokerage firm, Greiner-Maltz, on the 3.79-acre Number One School property, but has not yet included the library in its advertisement of the land.
The Lawrence trustees' support for the Zion Park library comes one month after PPL officials presented modified plans to the ones they first revealed last summer at the Jan. 12 village board meeting, which include more parking spots and take up less green-space in the park. The Lawrence Association will be hosting a public forum on the PPL's plans for a new library on March 1 at Lawrence Village Country Club at 7:30 p.m. The library also needs district 15 voters to approve a bond to make the Zion Park facility a reality.
PPL officials, who first presented plans for a new library at Zion Park at the Lawrence village board meeting last summer, recently attempted to address some concerns raised by some of the trustees, which included reducing the village's green space and diminishing parking for residents. In the latest plans, the library would be re-sited, using the paved area of the park as the cornerstone for the building, which would limit the facility's coverage of park greenery to a little over 2,000 of roughly 40,000 square-feet of grass, or five percent, according to PPL officials. The new facility would also not impact the park's current playground, which encompasses 2,970 square-feet, according to village officials.
"I am delighted to hear at least in principal that the Board of Trustees supports this proposal," said Breitman in a phone interview.
Breitman said she is hoping to get a large turnout of residents from all over district 15 at the March 1 public forum so they can get a firsthand look at the latest Zion Park PPL proposal.
The latest proposal would also re-configure the village municipal parking lot and traffic flow to create perpendicular parking spaces, which would increase the number of spots from 162 to 166, not including on-street parking in the vicinity of Zion Park. PPL officials have stressed that a library relocation would bring many positives to the village of Lawrence and neighboring communities, including increased security in Zion Park due to better lighting, additional pedestrian activity and an improvement in the existing landscape and maintenance of the park. Library officials have also pointed out that the village could stand to receive more revenue as a result of a more often-used parking lot. The village would also receive additional tax revenue if a commercial property took the place of the current PPL facility.
Library officials have tried for years to expand their building, but have hit roadblocks because of a State Education Department law that prohibited the Number One School from losing any playground space. Since the school was closed by the school board in June, 2004 as part of a consolidation plan to save the district money, library officials have lobbied for expansion, but have been unsuccessful because of the projected high value of the property. Voters also defeated a 1997 referendum to build a new library on Rockaway Turnpike in Cedarhurst.
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