By Jeff Lipton
The five-member zoning board Ñ chairman Anthony Siniscalchi and members Carl Baessler, Myron Kaufman, Leslie Frimerman and George Cornish Ñ was selected by Mayor Stephen Mahler and confirmed by the village Board of Trustees last month after the Nassau County Board of Elections certified the November vote giving the village the go-ahead to create the zoning board.
The village had been the only one in the state without its own zoning authority because it was incorporated in 1962, and the county charter formerly stated that any village created after 1938 would be without zoning powers. That control reverted to the town in which the village sits, in this case the Town of Hempstead. But after a six-year battle, the village won the right to put the measure up for a referendum, which was approved with 54 percent of the vote.
At its inaugural meeting on Thursday, Jan. 23, at Village Hall, the zoning board unanimously approved construction of the squad's fire and rescue headquarters, a planned one-story, 4,700-square-foot building near the handball courts on Albany Boulevard, at Acapulco Street, on the south side of the Atlantic Beach Bridge.
The squad will lease the land for 30 years from the Nassau County Bridge Authority.
The 28-member rescue squad currently operates out of antiquated facilities on Eldorado Street.
The new building will include 2,500 square feet of garage space to house up to four fire and rescue vehicles, as well as administrative offices and training facilities for the rescue squad and the Atlantic Beach Fire District.
It will also serve as the emergency operations center for the fire district. A dock at the rear of the property will house a full-time fire and rescue boat, and Atlantic Beach will be the only fire department to have one.
Jonathan Kohan, chief of the rescue squad, said he hopes to break ground around Memorial Day and complete the project six to eight months after that. The project will be funded by the squad and the fire district, he said.
The village first started discussing the project in 1992 but couldn't find the appropriate space for the headquarters, Kohan said. Mahler said some former village trustees had also opposed the plans.
The project was scheduled to be heard by the Town of Hempstead Board of Zoning Appeals on Dec. 5, but when the village zoning board was approved, the application for construction went before the new board instead.
Siniscalchi said the plans were approved, but not before some modifications were made, including reducing the height of a wall from six to four feet. He said the project should greatly improve the property, which is now home to a vacant lot overgrown with weeds.
This should improve the property, which is now in terrible condition, Siniscalchi said. They will fix up the handball courts and put new ones in and put curbs and sidewalks on the street. It is absolutely wonderful what they are doing.
The zoning board chairman said the inaugural meeting felt great, like we were doing something very, very constructive for the Village of Atlantic Beach.
Siniscalchi said the board envisions erecting houses about 300 feet south of the property, at the former KO's Chinese Restaurant, which has been vacant for more than two years. We want to clean up the area, he said. It's really run-down now, he said.
Kohan said the squad's current facilities are woeful and that the squad has about $250,000 worth of equipment sitting on the streets.
He explained that before they could take on the project, the squad members had to get a bill signed by Gov. George Pataki as well as State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and Assemb. Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach) that would allow the squad to build on Nassau County Bridge Authority property. The measure also had to be approved by the county Legislature, and Kohan thanked Legis. Michael Zapson (D-Long Beach) for pushing it through.
This headquarters is supposed to be a nice structure, one of the best, said Mahler. It is very important for an island community to have one. We have to always be prepared in the event of a hurricane. The rescue squad is doing a tremendous job serving the village and they deserve a new building.
Earlier, the mayor appointed an eight-member zoning commission, headed by David Woolfe, to assess the village's zoning and make recommendations to the Board of Trustees about possible changes in zoning.
