The Mineola Village Board of Trustees set a new date to review a revised site plan from Lalezarian Developers for an apartment complex on Old Country Road and turned down an application for expansion of the Learn & Play Day Care Center at its meeting last Wednesday night.
At a May 29 hearing on the initial Lalezarian plan for a nine-story, 345-unit apartment building at 250 Old Country Road, board members expressed concerns about the height of the building and changes from a previous plan that would have the rear of the building facing Old Country Road. A June 20 date was originally set to review revised plans, but Village Attorney John Spellman said the applicant had requested an adjournment until sometime next month.
“I feel that the building’s too big. I feel that it creates ‘a little Manhattan’,” Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss said at the original hearing.
Spellman distributed new site drawings submitted by Lalezarian to the board members. Strauss suggested setting an Aug. 8 hearing date and the board agreed to revisit the site plans on that time.
Lalezarian Developers partner Kevin Lalezarian declined to comment last week on proposed revisions to the apartment complex plans.
The developers had originally proposed the project as a condominium complex three years ago. The property is currently occupied by the former Keyspan building, a five-story structure.
The application of day-care facility owner Arthur Smyles to expand its facility at 80 Herricks Road, originally presented during a public hearing earlier this year, was unanimously rejected by the board.
Smyles wanted to expand the existing day care center into a space occupied by a neighboring dollar store on the property. The two buildings combined would represent 21,084 sq. ft. of floor space, with 14,236 sq. ft. for the day care and 6,848 sq. ft. for the dollar store.
“I believe it’s unacceptable for the inbound and outbound ingress,” Strauss said.
Strauss said he thought the expanded facility would pose problems for emergency vehicle access and thought parking on the site would be “inadequate” for traffic produced by more parents dropping off children there.
Trustee Lawrence Werther agreed that “there is not sufficient parking there.”
Trustee Paul Cusato said the facility was a “bad fit” for both access by fire department apparatus and parking.
Trustee George Durham said he had doubts about the facility’s evacuation plans in case of emergency.
“I believe they didn’t have an adequate plan for children to exit the property,” Durham said.
