The Floral Park Architectural Review Board on Wednesday unanimously approved the subdivision of the long-vacant Patterson Energy Group property, where the developer intends to build a string of nine houses.
At its meeting Wednesday, the review board approved Carriage Hill Developers’ proposal to divide the property, which has sat vacant for years, into nine lots.
The project architect, Jerry Rumplick, said Carriage Hill is still waiting for the designs of the homes to be approved.
“Our goal is to work with the ARB and come up with house designs that fit with the current aesthetic of the neighborhood,” Rumplick said. “We hope we can move this on as quickly as possible and proceed to the next step.”
The proposed lots met Floral Park zoning requirements and would require no variances, Rumplick said. The preliminary design for each home included a minimum 40-foot frontage, a garage at the back of the property along the train tracks and a driveway out to Cisney Avenue.
The village also agreed to sell for $120,000 a narrow strip of municipal-owned land along the Cisney Avenue side of the property to provide street access for driveways.
The Architectural Review Board included a stipulation in its decision that Carriage Hill would provide funding to develop a pocket park on a patch of village-owned land diagonally adjacent to the property, according to Hillcrest Civic Association President Nadia Ortiz.
“They are requiring that Carriage Hill Developers allocate money to develop Cisney [Avenue] into a pocket park,” Ortiz said. “That green space is great.”
She said that the village and civic association would collaborate to develop the green space and that Carriage Hill would only be providing the funds.
Rumplick said Carriage Hill hoped to finish construction within a year of the start of construction.
Members of the architectural review board did not respond to requests for comment.
At a February hearing on the subdivision, residents in attendance almost unanimously supported the plans for residential development, though some questioned how it would affect traffic and whether nine lots would be too many.
“I approve of this because I’ve been looking at this eyesore for the last 20 years,” one resident said at the hearing, though he suggested a replacing a nearby stop sign with a traffic light to accommodate the additional cars.
But one resident at the hearing who lives on Cisney Avenue said the subdivisions were too small and out of place in Floral Park.
“I does not feel like the community,” she said. “It feels too squished; it feels like Queens.”
Ortiz said that while she and other residents would have preferred seven or eight lots, she recognizes the developer’s need to maximize revenue on the property.
“Now we just have to ensure they’re mindful of the intrusion to the community,” she said.
Rumplick said the firm intends to maintain any existing trees on the lots and that the driveways and houses were designed to avoid the removal of trees.
“I’ve flipped driveways and houses,” he said at the hearing, referring to the designs. “Any tree we can keep, we’re going to.”
