Village of Great Neck Plaza trustees announced their intention Wednesday to seek a Nassau County grant to upgrade the village’s streetlight fixtures to LED lights.
The Board of Trustees adopted a resolution at its board meeting to authorize the application for the county Office of Community Development’s 42nd Year Community Development Block Grant.
“Since I’ve been mayor I know we’ve applied all but one year,” Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender said. “We want to go now for some lighting upgrades to swap out our street lighting for LED lighting.”
Village Clerk-Treasurer Patricia O’Byrne said she is in the process of completing the application, which required the board to hold Wednesday’s public hearing and adopt a resolution after.
O’Byrne also said the application was due by April 1 and the village would find out if it was awarded the grant at some point this summer.
Celender said the application informs the county on specific plans for project.
“The application will identify how many [streetlights] we’re doing and what our anticipated costs are,” she said.
Celender also said the village received this same county grant last year, which it is applying the funds to the repaving of the village’s Maple Drive parking lot.
Also at the meeting, the board adjourned discussion on an application for a proposed 61-unit apartment complex at 15 Bond St. to review an updated State Environmental Quality Review Assessment submitted by the applicant this week.
Celender said she wanted to give both the Board of Trustees and the Board of Zoning and Appeals enough time to properly review the modified environmental report.
In July, the board voted to become the lead agency on the project to handle the State Environmental Quality Review Assessment, which would determine if the project would have any significant environmental impacts on the surrounding area.
The engineering firm VHB was hired by the village to oversee the SEQRA review.
In November, the board requested Paul Bloom, attorney for Effie Namdar of 14 Park Place LLC, which is seeking to build the complex, to further respond to environmental review concerns.
Residents of the four surrounding buildings — Westminster Hall Apartments, located at 4 Maple Place, The Cartier Apartments, located a 21 Bond St. 22 Park Place and 25 Park Place — have voiced concerns at past meetings about the applicant’s zoning variance requests.
The developers are seeking a height variance that would permit a four-story, 45-foot high building. Village zoning laws permit only three-story buildings that are 45 feet high.
The developers also asked for a 13-foot-high room on top of the building that would be used as a recreation room. Bloom had said at a previous BZA meeting that many buildings surrounding 15 Bond St. are more than three stories high.
The application was adjourned to the April 6 board meeting.
Also at the meeting, the board adjourned discussion on an application for a conditional-use permit by the owner of the Shop Delight supermarket to operate a butcher shop three stores down on Welwyn Road.
At the Feb. 3 meeting, Village Attorney Richard Gabriele asked Bloom, who also represents Shop Delight owner Edward Yakupov, to return to the board with answers addressing trustees’ concerns regarding a comparison of ownership between the proposed butcher shop and Shop Delight as well as food delivery information including frequency of deliveries, identity of deliverer, what they deliver, delivery times, size of trucks and if Yakupov would fund a code enforcement officer either through the store or through the village.
Celender said Bloom was unable to gather all of the information in time and requested an adjournment to the April 6 meeting.
