North Hempstead approves shift on zoning board

Joe Nikic

The North Hempstead Town Board on Tuesday appointed two new members to its Board of Zoning Appeals, who will be succeeding  two  members who had served on the board since the late 1990s. 

Daniel Donatelli, the co-president of Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington, and J.A. Hernandez, of Manhasset, were unanimously appointed by the town board.

“J.A. and Dan bring with them an array of knowledge and experience,” Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth said. “I know they’re going to make wonderful additions to our zoning board.”

Donatelli and Hernandez will succeed Donal McCarthy, who was  appointed to the zoning board in 1996, and Paul Aloe, who  joined the zoning board in 1997.

Aloe’s term ended in December 2013 and McCarthy’s term ended in December 2015, but both remained as board members  until the town appointed new members. 

Bosworth gave a “big thank you” to the two former members for their time on the board.

“We’re so appreciative of their time and the hard work that they provided while serving on the BZA,” she said. 

The town board also reappointed Leslie Francis and David Levine to the zoning board. 

Francis began serving on the board in 2009 and Levine joined in 2012.  

Town BZA members serve five-year terms. 

They are paid $13,146 annually, while the chairman of the board receives $15,774 annually. 

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the town board approved a site plan review for a proposed two-story warehouse on Herricks Road in Garden City Park. 

LSC Development LLC is seeking to expand and convert its current one-story 63,335-square-foot warehouse into a two-story 126,711-square-foot self-storage facility. 

Bruce Migatz, an attorney representing LSC Development, presented the board with the plans for the new facility, which included a security fence around the property.

Anthony Mastroianni, who appeared at the meeting representing Van Muran, who owns and operates an adjacent building, urged the board to deny the application because of the fence.

Mastroianni said the fence would prevent Muran from backing trucks into a loading zone on his property. 

He also said that while the fence is technically on LSC Development’s property, his client had adverse possession of that part of the property through a prescriptive easement.

A prescriptive easement means that someone other than the original property owner gains use or ownership rights of a piece of property after using it for the designated statute of limitations.

The statute of limitations for a prescriptive easement in the state of New York is 10 years, and Mastroianni said Muran had been using the property for more than 50 years. 

Town Attorney Elizabeth Botwin said the town had no jurisdiction over a possible prescriptive easement and that the matter would need to be handled in court. 

Mastroianni said his client intended to take legal action against LSC Development.

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