Deny Academy Gardens plan: civil rights group

Anthony Oreilly

A national civil rights organization has written to the Village of Great Neck Planning Board, asking them to reject the site plan application of a developer seeking to demolish the rent-stabilized Academy Gardens apartment complex and construct luxury condominiums in its place.

The Nassau County chapter of the National Action Network, in a letter dated Jan. 15, urged planning board members to “vote against any plans by this owner developer that will not take into consideration and accommodate the housing needs of the residents of Academy Gardens.” 

The National Action Network is a civil rights organization founded in 1991 by Rev. Al Sharpton. 

“There appears to be a systematic effort to get rid of these tenants whom are predominantly Black and Hispanic to make way for developing the units into luxury condos,”  said chapter President Elder Annette Dennis in the letter.

The letter was sent in advance of a Jan. 16 meeting of the planning board where the Academy Gardens proposal was to be presented by Kings Point Gate Associates LLC, a development company whose owners include David Adeliphour, a one-time Kings Point resident.  

If the proposal is approved, more than 20 low-income minority families would be forced out of their homes, and possibly out of Great Neck.

The hearing was postponed at the applicant’s request to file more documentation on the matter, planning board Chairman Charles Segal said. 

Paul Bloom, a lawyer representing Kings Point Gate Associates, has stressed at several planning board hearings that the tenants will be paid six-years worth of rent after they move out of Academy Gardens, if the project is approved.

Efforts to reach Bloom regarding the letter from the National Action Network were unavailing. 

Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman said at a recent Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees meeting that the developer had the legal right to rebuild the site and he would not make comment on the Academy Gardens proposal.

The letter from Dennis states that the NAN Nassau County chapter “has been in meetings with the residents,” and goes on to list the chapter’s complaints with Adeliphour. 

“Residents constantly complain of poor servicing of their units by building management which they believe is part of a long-range plan to force them to move from their homes,” Dennis said in the letter.

Dennis said that Julia Shields, president of the tenant’s association, had reached out to the civil rights group. After meeting with Sheilds and researching the issue, Dennis said, the National Action Network determined that their situation was something her organization wanted to get involved with. 

“We’re a civil rights organization and a social justice group. It’s an injustice what’s being done with [the tenants],” she said. 

Going forward, Dennis said her organization would like to meet with Adeliphour to discuss alternate plans 

“We’d like to set up a meeting with the owner and developer so some units will be set aside for some of the tenants,” she said. 

Two other letters have also been sent to the planning board in recent weeks. 

Amy Hagedorn, an independent philanthropist from Port Washington, wrote to the planning board on Jan. 2 saying, “Gentrifying this part of the Great Neck peninsula would be depriving the community of the variety of housing it now enjoys. It could be seen as pushing people of color out of the community.” 

Hagedorn was unavailable for comment as she is currently overseas, an assistant said. 

In an undated letter, Rev. Kathleen Edwards of St. Paul A.M.E. Zion Church on Steamboat Road wrote, “[The tenants] attend church here, they have raised or are in the process of raising their families here. They have watched and witnessed the vast changes in the community and it is devastating to know that they too may become an obsolete item of the past.”

Efforts to reach Rev. Edwards for comment were unsuccessful.

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