Lawmakers and civic leaders will look to finalize lingering issues preventing the official start of a project to construct a new Roslyn Country Club facility during a private meeting at North Hempstead Town Hall on Friday, officials said.
Todd Zarin, president of the Roslyn Country Club Civic Association, said “the broad strokes have already been completed” with regard to a $2 million acquisition contract between the town and Corona Realty Holdings to transfer more than 300,000 square feet of the new park district to North Hempstead, but the two sides must still determine long-term property rights for residents living within the country club community.
“The bottom line is that we need to make sure residents can protect their enormous investment in this facility so that 10, 20, 30 years down the road somebody’s not scratching their head to wonder if they can include another hundred people,” he said. “We’ve assumed at a gut level as far as how this thing will be operated, and we need to be committed so we can look at [the town] and they can reflect what we expect out of this special district and how those words become cemented in place.”
Zarin also said that a committee independent of the civic association comprised of residents of the country club is also expected to form to advocate in favor of protecting the community’s long-term residential rights, which town officials have said would include free membership to the new park district for residents who once held easements on the property.
Corona Realty Holdings, which owns more than 400,000 square feet of property at the site and operates the Royalton at Roslyn Country Club catering hall, shuttered the country club after suing residents in the 1990s over easement rights that provided for use of the club’s facilities for $100 a year. Nearly 400 residents then counter sued.
Zarin said nearly all the residents who brought litigation against Corona are willing to drop their lawsuits in exchange for a project to construct a new country club to move forward.
“My sense is that most people who got involved with the litigation did so to get a place opened, not get a check from Corona,” he said. “This project, which is fairly broad in scope and many other things that still need to get wrapped up, is the embodiment of that. That’s the goal I believe most people have had with this litigation.”
The town and Corona agreed to the acquisition in 2012. The town last year created a special park district within the unincorporated Roslyn community to restore the country club, which was shuttered several years ago.
In early December, the Nassau County Planning Commission approved a subdivision application that officials said would help finalize the acquisition of the property and allow for the start of construction.
North Hempstead has proposed a redevelopment of the property that includes renovations to the club’s pool area and tennis courts as well as the construction of a new locker room facility, playgrounds and a basketball court.
Perhaps the most severe repairs included in the plan are for the pool area, which officials said would allow for a wade-in area compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act, lap swimming and several smaller pools to be used for aerobics classes and swim instruction.
During public information sessions about the proposal in November, town officials said they would like for minor renovations to begin this fall.
A tentative date for the opening of the country club was set for Memorial Day 2017.
North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth (D-Great Neck) at the time said the sessions were positive and that she was optimistic for the project to move forward.
The redevelopment would be financed using $12 million in borrowed funds, which town officials said would be repaid over a 20-year period. The town would also utilize bond anticipation notes in the first five years of the project due to current low interest rates.
The park district is expected to require $1,092,342 in operating costs in its first year, officials said.
Residents living within the country club community – the property is located within Locust Lane, Saddle Lane and Club Drive – would pay a median $1,320 assessed valuation in 2017, town officials said is based on a home valued at $730,800.
“I think that expectations on part of residents and the real estate market at large create a lot of pressure in getting this done,” Zarin said. “The costs of residences in the Roslyn Country Club demand that we get it open, and I think the pressure on us to do that ultimately take us back to the distinctiveness of this community and what it was in the 1950s and ’60s.”
