By Jeff Lipton
Now town officials and opponents of the plan by Serota Properties to reopen the solid waste facility for construction and demolition debris are pledging to continue to fight the proposal.
Susan Trenkle, a spokeswoman for the Town of Hempstead, said the town¹s attorney has already filed an appeal of the court¹s ruling. ³We¹re confident we will win,² Trenkle said. ³The town disagrees with the Supreme Court and it is fully committed to fighting this.²
Anthony Iovino, the attorney representing Oceanside Cove, a condominium complex on Daly Boulevard, near the town¹s industrial zone, said opposition to the recycling plant is still very strong. ³We¹re very disappointed,² Iovino said of the court decision overturning the BZA vote. ³We think this is not a good day for Oceanside or Oceansiders.²
The town BZA had denied Serota¹s request for a height variance to raise the roof of the building, once owned by Gator Recycling Corporation, on Brown Court, on Dec. 6, 2006. Serota, a Valley Stream-based company, proposed to raise the roof from 20 feet to 36 feet to accommodate an indoor recycling operation where trucks could load and unload materials. The zoning board sided with the Oceanside Cove Homeowners Association, which had opposed Serota on the grounds that there are already too many recycling businesses in Oceanside¹s industrial zone and would add to existing problems, from airborne dust to heavy traffic in town.
But, in a decision dated Aug. 2, the Supreme Court overturned the BZA vote, agreeing with Serota attorney William Cohn that the decision was made in error.
Even though the town¹s building department had denied Serota permission to reopen the facility, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had already approved the new facility, determining that it met the standard and would not be ³noxious and offensive² to its neighbors.
Between hearings on the proposal last year, the Hempstead town board passed a new code that, in addition to the noxious-and-offensive standard, would require recyclers within 500 feet of a residential area to obtain a special use permit. This would protect neighbors from a variety of quality of life issues, such as dust, odor, traffic, noise and vibration.
Since the owner was proposing to reopen an existing facility, Cohn had argued that the recycling plant was not required to obtain a special use permit.
In 2003, Gator was shut down after being slapped with fines for code violations for stockpiling 10 times the amount of permitted waste. Nathan Serota, who became a 50 percent owner of Gator in 1998 and full owner in 2001, spent more than $1 million to clean up the property and paid $320,000 in fines as penalty for the violations.
Last week, officials at Serota Properties could not be reached for comment on the Supreme Court decision, but Cohn said the court¹s ruling was a proper one. When the BZA voted against the proposal, Cohn said he knew it had made an error and immediately appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.
³The approval of the plans by the state DEC did not properly take into account the true impact of this facility on the neighborhood,² said Iovino, who was not involved in the case before the Supreme Court.
Iovino said even though the recycled materials will be dumped inside the facility, the plant will operate with the ³door wide open,² and surrounding residents will still get all the odors and dust.
Serota representatives have maintained that the indoor facility would feature a continuous dust suppression system that would carry airborne particles back down on the recyclable materials or the floor.
Iovino said the property owner also has failed to address traffic issues, saying that the truck traffic will be too much for the local roads to handle.
Cohn said the area is zoned for industrial use and neighbors knew what they were moving next to. ³This shouldn¹t be a surprise to anyone,² he said. ³This has been there since the 1930s. Inside Oceanside Cove it¹s a very nice community, but outside [it¹s industrial].²
Cohn said neighbors should not worry about the facility once it reopens because the DEC will carefully monitor the site. ³The DEC is very good at that,² Cohn said. He added that since the site ³has a history,² the DEC will pay even more attention to it once it opens.
Iovino said that based on prior cases, he has ³zero confidence² that the DEC is equipped to monitor the facility. ³I have absolutely no confidence, none, that the DEC can monitor the facility or properly enforce the rules,² he said. ³The plant was only shut down after years of complaints. The DEC,
in my opinion, has no credibility in Oceanside.²
In responding to Iovino¹s comments, a DEC spokeswoman said, ³Unfortunately, government agencies often become easy targets for criticism. The fact of the matter is, however, that the DEC¹s legal action against the prior operator at the site resulted in a court-ordered shutdown of the facility, a $320,000 penalty paid by the property owner and a total cleanup of the site.²
Cohn said the project is on hold pending the outcome of any appeals. ³If [the town] loses the appeal, they [Serota] will be able to get their permits and open shortly thereafter,² he said.
Joseph Kellard contributed to this story. Comments about it? Jlipton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
