The North Hempstead Town Council on Tuesday approved a zoning change for a proposed senior housing facility at the Mount Olive property in Manhasset and adopted the findings of a State Environmental Quality Review Act investigation of the project detailing the cleanup of contaminants that have deemed the 3.19-acre parcel a “brownfield” site.
With the approval, the site is rezoned from “Residence-C” to the town’s new “Senior Residence” zone, making way for 48 one-bedroom and 24 two-bedroom rental apartments for tenants age 55 and older.
“This is an opportunity we have where we can clean up a contaminated site, which is beneficial to the entire community, and to be able to provide affordable housing to the Town of North Hempstead. It’s a big project to stand behind,” said North Hempstead town Councilwoman Anna Kaplan, whose 4th District includes parts of Manhasset.
The plan would also include the installation of a traffic light at the site’s intersection of Community Drive and Community Drive East to alleviate concerns of traffic congestion as part of the State Environmental Quality Review Act report, in addition to maintaining as many trees and shrubs as possible during the brownfield cleanup.
A visual simulation of the site, from all vantage points, would also be required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.
Town officials lauded the project’s approval, saying the facility would provide seniors with affordable housing and increase the tax base for the Town of North Hempstead and Manhasset School District without increasing the number of students in the district.
Families with children would be ineligible to live in the apartment complex. Officials have said applicants who make between $25,000 and $65,000 would be selected.
During a previous hearing on the project last November, representatives for the applicant, G&G Acquisitions Group LLC, said the property’s condition — contaminated with metals lead and arsenic, among other undisclosed toxins — exceed the requirements needed to qualify for the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Brownfield Cleanup Program. The program provides conditional tax incentives in exchange for the remediation and subsequent redevelopment of brownfield sites.
The Mount Olive Baptist Church, which currently owns the site, has a tax exemption on the property and is not required by law to remediate the contaminants.
The town’s approvals paves the way for G&G Acquisitions to complete the acquisition of the property. The company’s representatives had previously said the brownfield cleanup was contingent upon the housing project moving forward.
“The cleanup of that brownfield is going to cost millions of dollars, and who else is going to do it but a developer? No one else in the community is able to do such a thing,” said Diana Holden, the executive director of the after-school tutoring center Adventures in Learning, which is located near the proposed site. “So I really believe this is a great project, for the seniors, the children and their families.”
Opposition to the zoning change came from East Hills resident and environmental advocate Richard Brummel, who had challenged a previous zoning approval on the project reducing the minimum parcel size from five acres to two acres.
Brummel said the Mount Olive site would be inconvenient for seniors to walk to nearby stores and that the project would harm the environment and wildlife in the area.
But Holden said the only animals she had seen near the brownfield site “are the raccoons that greet me on the way to my car” and that she is worried about children who play in the area.
Manhasset resident Steve Salerno also shared his support of the project during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s hearing, saying, “As a grandson of a 100-year-old grandfather, I see the need for this kind of housing, and if you’re able to make it to 100 years old, you should be able to have affordable housing.”
