By JOSEPH KELLARD
The congregation Temple Zion, at 62 Maryland Ave., has agreed to lease its parking lot to the city, which will turn it into a municipal lot.
The City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to enter into the lease. “It’s something that we thought we could do for the residents to use that lot,” corporation counsel Corey Klein said of the West End, an area notoriously lacking in parking spaces.
The city’s preliminary plan is to provide 23 spaces and one handicapped-parking spot, at no charge to residents. The city will rent the lot from Temple Zion for $30,000 a year.
David Koegel, president of Temple Zion, said that after its rabbi, who served the 60-year-old temple for more than two decades, died recently, the congregation found itself in a difficult position. “We need to attract a new rabbi, and we’d like to encourage new members to move to the West End,” Koegel explained. “So we have a common goal with the city, in the sense that, on the one hand, we’re trying to provide a sustainable house of worship to our congregants — we have a very small membership — but we also want any opportunity that comes along to help the surrounding neighbors to help with the parking congestion.”
Larry Benowitz, a member of Temple Zion, said he is thrilled to see this agreement come to pass. “It will surely help ease the traffic situation in some small way in the West End,” he said.
Olive Street resident Jennifer De Sena suggested that a second handicapped spot be added to the city’s plan. “We have a lot of disabled and elderly people in Long Beach,” she said, “and it might be beneficial to have two handicapped spots in that area.” Klein said that he would pass that suggestion along to the Public Works Department, which will design the lot according to city code.
In the fall, the West End will also have a new library, at 810 W. Beech St., between California Street and New York Avenue, and the council agreed to waive an off-street parking requirement.
“We’re grateful that instead of going to the zoning board, the City Council moved more quickly to move the process along,” said Long Beach Library Director George Trepp.
Trepp noted that the library had submitted its plans to the new owners of the property, Theresa and Amerigo Palmieri, and an architect will submit designs. While no date has been set for the start of construction, Trepp said he expects that the new branch will open by fall.
The new library will be a quarter to a third smaller than the previous satellite branch at 868 W. Beech St. “But because it is new,” Trepp said, “we anticipate there is going to be a lot more excitement in the West End, so we anticipate about the same level or slightly higher level of use.” The satellite branch will house roughly 4,000 items, from books to DVDs to CDs.
The West Beech Street branch, which operated for more than 30 years, was closed last June when constant leaking caused mold infestation, Trepp said. Last month residents passed the library’s $3.1 million 2008-09 budget, a 4.6 percent increase over the current budget, about 1 percent of which will cover the lease for the new branch.
The library has agreed to a five-year lease with the Palmieris, with a five-year option to renew, Trepp said.
Klein said that the business that operated at the library’s new location, a convenience store, was shut down because it was selling assorted drug paraphernalia. “We went to Nassau County and got an order ... to close this store down,” Klein said. “So this is a remarkable turnaround … Normally in a case like this, we send this to the zoning board, but the council wanted to make sure that it got
expedited.”
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
