A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled June 14 against a plan by Village of Kings Point trustees to convert 5.5 acres of Kings Point Park to a new department of public works headquarters and ordered the village to remove all non-park related materials and structures.
“We believe the judge was wrong and we are appealing,” said Village of Kings Point Mayor Michael Kalnick, who promised if they lose on appeal to bring the issue to the Nassau County Legislature. “The legislature is the only body that has the right, if it is ultimately deemed [by the courts] to be parkland, to take it out of parkland status.”
The village has used the parcel for non-park uses for more than 60 years. It currently houses a salt shed, garage, and construction materials such as sand and wood chips.
Kalnick said village trustees intended to build a new department of public works headquarters on the parcel and sell the land that was home to the old department of public works. The sale would net about $3.5 million, saving taxpayers the cost of a new building.
“If a new department of public works is not build there, we would have to bond it and pay it over time,” he said.
Attorney fees are paid for by a title company.
“We just received the decision and we are very happy about it,” said plaintiff and Village of Great Neck resident Daniel Capruso, a psychology professor at the New York City College of Technology.
The two-year-old lawsuit’s plaintiffs include New York State, and Great Neck residents Elizabeth Allen and Alan Berkower.
“Unfortunately the mayor has publicly stated that they intend to take this to the Court of Appeals,” Capruso said. “They have had two courts and the attorney general’s office tell them that what they have tried to do is wrong, yet they have not learned from it.”
The 5.5 acres in question is home to the largest trees in the 174-acre park, said Capruso, who lives about 50 feet from the park and uses it nearly everyday for hiking, sledding, and cross country skiing.
“There is so little old growth forest left in this county, that it would have been a great loss if they would have been permitted to cut these trees down,” he said.
He said non-park uses date back to the mid-1940s, when the village withdrew the 5.5 acres from a lease with the Great Neck Park District. It has been used variously as an artillery range for the Kings Point Police Department, and as a storage site for salt, construction materials and vehicles.
Despite those uses, he said people still used existing trails for recreational purposes. It was only when trustees sought to remove the site from recreational use that he filed suit along with fellow plaintiffs.
A preliminary injunction blocked trustees from proceeding with the project, including cutting down trees.
“When they had a public meeting and we expressed our opposition, the mayor and the trustees ignored our opposition,” he said. “If we had filed the lawsuit and they had cut down the trees anyway, it would have defeated a large part of doing this.”
Since there is no single law in New York State that prohibits parkland being used for other purposes, he said this case sets an important precedent.
“Their defense asserted that they did this 65 years ago and the statue of limitations should apply,” Capruso said. “The court ruled that it doesn’t matter when you started, you can’t use parkland for non-park purposes.”
