The Town of North Hempstead Board of Zoning Appeals did not decide the fate of a zoning variance request this week, which would allow a 320-student school to be built by the Congregation Beth EliYahu synagogue at the corner of Allenwood and Middle Neck roads.
After a more than 3 ½ hour meeting on Wednesday, board of zoning appeals Chairman David Mammina said the record will be “left open” on the request for the variances.
“We’re going to give them some more detail on traffic and stuff,” said Steven Schlesinger, who is the attorney representing the Congregation Beth EliYahu synagogue.
Board member Paul Aloe requested that representatives for the synagogue return to the board with a revised site plan.
Representatives for the synagogue now have 30 days to prepare the additional material to present to the board before it renders its decision, Mammina said.
The Allenwood Park Civic Association, which is contesting the zoning variance requests, will then have an opportunity to respond to the revised site plan, before attorneys for the synagogue present their final testimony by Labor Day, Mammina said.
The town board of zoning appeals will not hold another meeting on the variance request before making its final decision.
“I think the board was reasonable and you had general objections from the community, but every application has that,” Schlesinger said.
The Congregation Beth EliYahu synagogue, which is situated at 211 Middle Neck Road, put in a request for a zoning variance, to build a three-story structure to serve as a 320-student school at 195 Middle Neck Road.
If granted the zoning variances would allow for the expansion project associated with the existing building at the site, along with exceptions for insufficient parking for the school.
During Wednesday’s meeting, 13 Great Neck residents spoke against the synagogue’s variance request.
Allenwood Park Civic Association co-presidents Max Karpel and Eli Schilowitz made presentations on the synagogue’s variance request, along with the organization’s vice president Laura Cohen.
“We think it went well,” Cohen said of Wednesday’s meeting. “We think the board seemed to pick up on the issues that were important to us as well. They realized the safety concerns and the traffic concerns that are going to come about with a school of that size in this spot.”
The Allenwood Park Civic Association represents nearly 500 households situation in Great Neck’s unincorporated Allenwood area, which consists of a group of streets between the villages of Kensington and Great Neck in an area from Middle Neck Road to East Shore Road.
All of the streets are situated in the vicinity of the Great Neck Park District’s Allenwood Park.
