I arrived late to the 7:30 a.m. meeting, but the opening fireworks were stunning.
As you can imagine, few residents witnessed that unusual, early morning meeting of the planning board of the Village of Great Neck, so let me immortalize it. The sky was gray when the members convened, and later the sun could not reinvigorate the day with color and warmth.
The project that was the topic of the meeting has the developer’s label “100 Clover Drive,” even though Clover Drive is in the adjacent village, Great Neck Estates. The planning board held a hearing on the subdivision once a month starting last November and closed the hearing April 24 under duress and without resolution.
So here we were on the morning of May 1, waiting to learn the fate of the three-acre woodland between Old Mill Road and Clover Drive, and the adjoining watershed.
When the board convened, the expectation was that they would discuss one last issue, a set-aside within the proposed 10-home subdivision for a small park. Instead, one member offered the view that time spent deciding on parkland might be wasted if the board were to turn down the application.
This was quickly followed by one after the other of the board members speaking in succession, four members of five voicing their intention to turn down the application. They cited lack of safety in the subdivision itself, lack of safety at the proposed entrance from Clover Drive, precedent, significant changes to the site plan since it was approved by the BZA, density (number of houses), lack of access to a public road (a New York State requirement), multiple violation of the Planning Board’s own codified guidelines….
At this point the acting chairman, Raymond Iryami, reined in the conversation. Mr. Iryami announced there were “legal implications” and therefore the board had to adjourn to an executive session to ask “advice of counsel.” The five members filed out, along with the board’s counsel Christopher Prior of the law firm Ackerman, Levine, Cullen, Brickman & Limmer.
In a room nearby, shouting erupted. The secretary to the board discreetly closed the door and the sound became distant and muffled until it died away.
An hour later, the board emerged from its executive session discussion. Acting Chair Iryami announced to the residents and media in attendance that the board members were unanimous in support of the application.
Mr. Iryami summarized by saying: “We were told to approve this and go home.”
He also reported that “advice of counsel” included the message that “any action we might take may have legal consequences.”
In other words, were the board to turn down the application, they would embroil their village in expensive legal court battles with the developer and cost the village unknown sums of money. (The threat of a lawsuit is an illegitimate reason to approve a subdivision.)
What could have caused this dramatic revision? Put yourself in the position of board members: If you firmly believed in the infirmities and dangers of a proposed land subdivision and subsequent building project, what would make you do an about-face?
What would compel you to desert your well-thought-out commitments? What would force you to forsake your integrity? What would make you approve a subdivision that from its inception will be unsafe?
According to the attorneys, the subdivision does not need a fire apparatus access road (an FAAR) as intended by the New York State Fire Code. Rest assured, the attorneys told the board, the houses will instead be “sprinklered.”
The fire code has no faith in in-home sprinklers as a direct substitute for a roadway suitable for first responders, so I have a suggestion for the future owners of the homes in this subdivision and their nearby neighbors: They should buy a lot of buckets. Fill them with water. Put those buckets in every room and refill them as the water evaporates, to have at hand, always, some fire-fighting water so families can fight their own fires.
The board, having been boondoggled and bullied and manipulated and misinformed, is scheduled to take its official vote on May 15. Meanwhile, they have left the drafting of the decision to counsel, completing their relinquishment of their decision-making function and their failure to protect our community.
Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar
Great Neck
