The Village of Great Neck Planning Board on Thursday picked the engineering firm Nelson, Pope and Voorhis and Columbia University professor Lance Freeman to determine if the proposed demolition of the rent-stabilized Academy Gardens apartment complex would create racial disparity in the community.
“I think it makes sense,” planning board Chair Charles Segal said of the selection of the engineering firm and Freeman.
Segal said Nelson, Pope and Voorhis will address the environmental concerns of the proposed project, while Freeman will look at the ethnicity of the current tenants and compare them to the ethnicity of potential tenants of the proposed market-rate units by using census data.
Board members said that if Freeman and Nelson, Pope and Voorhis do not agree to work together, Freeman would assume sole responsibility for providing the board with an answer.
“I liked that his proposal was very simple,” Segal said of the Columbia professor. “His approach was cut and dry.”
Freeman, who has been a professor at Columbia since 2006, is an associate professor in the school’s urban planning program and has written several books and articles on disparate impact in New York communities, according to his resume. He has also served as a consultant for New York City on the “impact of night clubs on surrounding property values,” according to his resume.
Nelson, Pope and Voorhis is a Melville-based firm formed in 1997 with expertise in “environmental analysis, planning and feasibility, resource assessment and site investigations,” according to its website.
Efforts to reach both Nelson, Pope and Voorhis and Freeman for comments on the study were unavailing.
The two were picked from a list of four experts, which also included City University of New York professor Andrew Alan Beveridge and Brown University Professor John Logan.
Segal called Beveridge’s approach to the study “complicated” and said he did not like Logan as a candidate because he was not familiar with Long Island or New York.
Academy Gardens tenants and their supporters called for the board to hire an independent expert to research the socio-economic impact of the proposed demolition at a March 27 planning board meeting, saying that a review paid for by Kings Point Gate’s attorney Paul Bloom was biased.
The socio-economic review provided by Bloom concluded that the proposed demolition would not create a racial disparity within the Great Neck peninsula, board officials said.
“I don’t think it’s proper to rely on Mr. Bloom’s application,” Great Neck resident Lisa Mevorich said in an interview. “We need another disinterested party to look into this.”
Segal said at the March meeting that the board would hire a civil rights expert to determine if the demolition of the rent-stabilized apartment complex, located at Middle Neck and Steamboat roads, would be in violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which makes it illegal to deny residency to a person because of their background.
“This board has an obligation to follow the law,” board member Raymond Iryami said.
The two experts will look at the impact the proposal by developer Kings Point Gate Associates LLC, which would replace the rent-stabilized apartments with market rate units, would have on the Village of Great Neck alone and not the entire peninsula.
The tenants of Academy Gardens have been in a months-long battle with Kings Point Gate Associates, the managing agent of the property, and David Adelipour, a former resident of Kings Point who owns the building, over a site-plan application for the market-rate units.
Many of the tenants of Academy Gardens are low-income minority families who have said they could not afford to live in Great Neck if they were evicted from the apartments.
Supporters of Academy Gardens tenants said they had mixed feelings on the board’s proposal to have Freeman work with Nelson, Pope and Voorhis on the study.
“I think it’s totally unnecessary to have Nelson, Pope and Voorhis,” said Fred Pollack, a pro-bono attorney for the Academy Gardens tenants. “They’re trying to make an environmental determination when the board has already made one.”
But Anette Dennis, president of the Nassau County National Action Network, said she understood why the board had to pick Nelson, Pope and Voorhis.
“They have to make sure that they address SEQRA,” Dennis said. “I think the board is doing due diligence.”
Freeman was suggested to the board by Dennis, who said she had heard of the professor after consulting multiple fair housing organizations.
“His name kept popping up,” Dennis said.
Efforts to reach Kings Point Gate Associates were unavailing.
Bloom, a former chairman of the planning board who representing Kings Point Gate Associates, objected to the study calling it “inappropriate.”
In a June 13 letter to the village, Bloom said “nowhere in village law is there any authorization for a village planning board to engage in a ‘disparate impact’ analysis in connection with the site-plan review process.’”
Bloom had attempted to repeat those comments at the meeting but was told by Segal “I understand that you oppose all the experts. Got it.”
