A Long Island-based housing agency said the Village of Great Neck Planning Board would be violating federal law if it approved a proposal to demolish the rent-stabilized Academy Gardens apartment complex and replace it with market-rate units.
Long Island Housing Services Inc., in a letter dated April 21, said if the planning board approved the proposal by developer Kings Point Gate Associates LLC, it would be violating the Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to deny residency to a person because of their “race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin.”
“Without assurance that a new development will provide for displaced low-income occupants, developers Kings Point Gate Associates LLC’s proposal is seriously flawed, may lead to liability for the Village under the Fair Housing Act,” said Michelle Santantonio, the group’s executive director.
The non-profit group, founded in the 1969, describes itself on its website as a “fair housing agency serving all of Nassau and Suffolk Counties.” The group has represented thousands of tenants, mostly minorities, who face eviction from their homes, according to its website.
The planning board in March approved the hiring of a civil rights consultant, to determine if the proposed construction would create a racial disparity in the Village of Great Neck.
But Santantonio said the racial disparity is clear.
“A comparison of demographics to those of the village, the Great Neck peninsula and Nassau County point to obvious disparate treatment,” she said.
Many of the tenants of Academy Gardens are low-income minority families who said they could not afford to live in Great Neck if they were evicted from Academy Gardens.
Efforts to reach Village of Great Neck Planning Board Chair Charles Segal for comment on the letter were unavailing.
Santantonio said in an interview she was contacted by Julie Shields, the tenants association president, and Annette Dennis of the Nassau County National Action Network.
Santantonio said she wrote to the village and the planning board to make them aware of their obligations under the Fair Housing Act.
“We’re just trying to help to the extent that we’re able,” she said.
An April 25 hearing on the proposal was postponed by Segal.
Segal said at the meeting the board was still in the process of choosing a civil rights expert to determine if the proposed construction would create a racial disparity in the Village of Great Neck.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Segal said, adjourning the public hearing until May 15.
Tenants have protested the proposal, which is currently in front of the Village of Great Neck Planning Board.
The tenants were joined by the Nassau National Action Network, Tenants Political Action Committee, members of the community as well as Village of Great Neck Deputy Mayor Mitchell Beckermann and Trustee Barton Sobel at an April 27 protest.
“We’re going to remain in Great Neck,” Shields told protesters gathered outside the complex on Middle Neck Road. “We’re not taking any amount of money.”
Attorney Paul Bloom, a former Village of Great Neck planning board chairman who is representing Kings Point Gate on the project, has stressed at several planning board meetings that the tenants are being treated fairly and will be paid six-years worth of rent after they move out of Academy Gardens, if the project is approved.
Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman, also a former chair of the Great Neck planning board, said at a January meeting of the Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees that the developer had the legal right to rebuild the site and he would not comment on the Academy Gardens proposal.
Academy Gardens tenants have been in a months-long battle with Kings Point Gate Associates, the managing agent of the property, and David Adelipour, a former resident of Kings Point who owns the building, over a site-plan application for the market-rate units.
A similar proposal was made in 2007 by Adelipour, which was halted because the building would have required a zoning variance.
An updated plan was presented to the Village of Great Neck Planning Board late last year.
Kings Point Gate Associates on April 8 filed a lawsuit against the planning board in an effort to block a potential environmental study of the proposal.
The suit states that Kings Point Gate Associates’ intent to replace an existing residential building “obviates any environmental assessment procedure” under state law.
Both sides argued in front of Judge Thomas Feinman on April 30 and will appear in court again on May 30, according to the court’s website.
