The highlight of the the May 8 Village Board of Trustees meeting was expected to be a public hearing regarding a proposed density cap of 25 units per acre in Rockville Centre.
But in an unanticipated statement, made before the public hearing began, Rockville Centre Mayor Eugene Murray proposed a four-month moratorium on the building of multi-family homes in Rockville Centre's downtown area. The legislation allowing such development had been enacted in January 2003.
Murray's proposal was met by apparent skepticism from Trustees Andrew Karamouzis and Jeanne Farnan Mulry.. They had previously requested such a moratorium, and pressed for the repeal of what has been dubbed the multi-family law. When previous votes were taken, however, Murray, Trustee Wayne Lipton and then Trustee Sutton repeatedly voted against such measures, citing a need for further research on the topic. As a result, the village held public hearings with an outside planning consultant, as well as hours of public comment on multi-family housing in commercial areas.
"I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks," Karamouzis said after Murray made the proposal
The board had recently enacted legislation designed to curtail development of the village's downtown. It included the addition of site plan review to the building process, regulation of the height of new structures and more stringent parking requirements for new construction. But numerous variences granted to applicants demonstrated a need for more comprehensive legislative action.
"We recognize that people are concerned about downtown multi-family uses as one of the allowed uses in our commercial districts," Murray and Lipton stated in a joint press release. "We believe, as our consultants do, that [previously approved] legislation improves the safety, security, and continued success of our downtown. However, the public has voiced its concerns. We therefore have proposed a moratorium on any multi-family projects ..."
Once the legislation proposed by Murray and Lipton is approved, any multi-family project in Rockville Centre that does not currently have a building permit will be stopped.
With a special election scheduled for June 20 to select a successor to the trustee seat vacated by Jim Sutton, the Residents' Voice Party - of which Mulry and Karamouzis are members - issued comments on the proposal, questioning Murray's motivation for proposing the legislation as well as the timing of his actions. "Since we were elected last June, Trustee Mulry and I have been advocating to control overdevelopment in Rockville Centre," Karamouzis said. "Last year, after we took office, we asked for a moratorium, and have repeatedly pressed for the repeal of the multi-family law, and have labored since August 2005 to get Home Rule" - the political party Murray and Lipton are members of - "to agree to a simple density cap for multi-family apartments. But we had consistently been blocked by the Home Rule majority. Now, just 43 days before a special election, which will determine the voting majority of the board, Home Rule professes to want to control overdevelopment and seizes upon our prior proposal for a moratorium."
During the May 8 meeting, Karamouzis and Mulry questioned the duration of the moratorium, saying that four months was not long enough to study the effects of such a multi-family law and make a clear determination about what is best for the village. After some heated discussion, Murray and Lipton agreed to increase the moratorium's duration to six months to allow for in-depth study of the issue.
Although happy with the increased time to study the impact of the legislation, Karamouzis, Mulry and Suzanne Murphy Sullivan - the Residents' Voice Party's candidate for the upcoming election - still had questions about the evening's events. "Just look at the timing," said Sullivan. "A moratorium will not even receive an initial vote until the next village board meeting on May 22. Then, by law, it has to be referred to the Nassau County Planning Commission [which will have] 30 days to review the moratorium. Thirty days brings us to June 21 - the day after the election."
"The members of the Home Rule Party and its opposition are in agreement on overdevelopment," Murray stated in an open letter to village residents. "We are both opposed to it. Judge us by our actions, not the political spin, the angry propaganda that seems to have taken over the village. It is time to recognize that while village zoning is an important topic, it's not the only issue in the next election."
Comments about this story? RVCeditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext 285.
