This is a response by the Mayor and Board of Trustees of the Village of Great Neck Plaza to a recent Editorial in your newspaper, “Local Government Needs to Keep Up With Changes in Retail.”
We are shocked and dismayed at the misinformation cited in this piece and the fact that the editor apparently never fact-checked, contacted our village, or even spoke with his own reporter (who covers all of the Village’s Board of Trustees meetings) to confirm the information.
Thus, there were numerous false statements which mischaracterize the actions of this village government and its officials. It is, in our opinion, grossly irresponsible reporting and offensive.
You try to make the argument that local officials are either ignoring the rise in empty storefronts, do not care or about it, or are not taking any actions to prevent this from happening. You cannot be more wrong.
Several years ago, the Village of Great Neck Plaza hired a marketing specialist to develop an eight-page full-color marketing brochure to be used by landlords and real estate brokers to attract new businesses to our downtown.
This beautiful brochure included a parking pamphlet identifying all our parking lots, descriptions of what the community offered and general information about the Great Neck Peninsula.
We had a meeting, inviting landlords, real estate brokers, the BID and those interested in commercial retail property development, to explain it and hand out multiple copies for their use when it was first launched.
An electronic version in PDF is available on our website. We have sent out the village’s marketing brochure numerous times to attract major chains and restaurants and encouraging them to consider Great Neck Plaza for one of their new locations.
Trustee Marksheid also hand-delivered one to a business in Astoria that was considering expanding.
We have also taken interested parties from other villages and cities on walking tours of the village and made arrangements for them to meet with prospective landlords. Unfortunately, one interested company was met with unrealistic demands from a landlord and they walked away.
This brings us to another problem that you may be unaware of, i.e. some landlords may not really want or be able to rent their stores at a reasonable rent.
For example, there was a destination restaurant in the village that was successful for decades and a favorite place of many residents and visitors. Due to rent increases and a lack of cooperation from the landlord, it became prohibitive even for this successful restauranteur to keep operating.
Another factor is that some stores are now vacant because the owners, after many years of business, have decided to retire. Some have been in business here for over 50 years and deserve their leisure time.
Before they shuttered down, the mayor went to speak to the owners of several of these store owners about possibly selling their business to a younger entrepreneur but the owners were neither prepared with an exit strategy nor knowledgeable about how to navigate such a venture in that direction.
It’s a real problem, and perhaps our long-time merchants, independent mom and pop stores, need assistance from the BID or Chamber of Commerce on the How To’s of engaging an expert consultant, and developing a plan a few years before they’re ready to retire, to sell their business instead of just shutting down.
You are totally incorrect regarding parking in our village.
For 20 years, we have had a 5-minute grace period on the individual meter heads that is added on when the paid-for time expires. We also have a five-minute free time period before putting in money, which we call “friendly meters” and there’s a note to that effect on the top of each of the green meters explaining that to customers.
There’s a button on the left side and this gives people who are just running into a store for a quick errand, or need to get change for the meter, five free minutes.
You write about our code enforcement officers who are not courteous but do not mention the abuse often heaped upon them when they appropriately issue tickets. They are cursed and yelled at and one officer had his foot intentionally run over.
You are unaware that we do suspend parking rules on some holidays, which are listed on the meters. We also offer free parking days in our lots (four-hour maximum) during the year-end holidays to encourage shopping at this peak time of year to assist our merchants.
The reason we cannot do this more often is that people going into Manhattan or taking the train to other points from Great Neck would take advantage and try and park all day. This would impact our stores and restaurants, as patrons would not be able to find parking and drive to some other areas.
There are villages, such as Roslyn, Mineola, Huntington, Patchogue, and others that charge more for parking ($1 per hour), including Saturdays and Sundays, and for longer hours, extending the time patrons are required to pay until 10:00 P.M.
The village also has a parking brochure, which is available online on the village’s and BID’s websites. Hard copies are located in holders in our lots to let patrons know where our parking facilities are located, what times parking meters and muni-meters are in effect, and where they can park for free after 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and on weekends and holidays.
It also explains our optional mobile app, Parkmobile, and how they can pay electronically via their smartphones.
Persons frequenting our restaurants for dinner indeed can find free parking in this village, and can park overnight, on-street, in our lots, and parking garages provided they’re out by 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. when permits and meters go into effect.
For a downtown village, Great Neck Plaza does have a very flexible parking system, with more parking than many other Long Island communities with a central business district and one of the least expensive parking rates.
We do have enough parking for visitors, but they have to sometimes be willing to walk a block or two and not expect to always park right in front of their destination.
You indicate that few village governments can afford consultants, but we have found the money for this when necessary. We feel it’s important to have empirical data on parking utilization and turnover, which is essential before coming up with a proper plan to address it.
In 2015, we hired Level G, a parking consultant to many Long Island communities, that came up with a parking plan and suggestions, many of which we adopted, including increasing our parking rate from $ 0.25 per hour to $ 0.50 per hour to encourage turnover and provide the village with additional revenues to maintain our lots and incorporate technology, such as a smartphone parking app.
In 2017, we invested in 225 new Duncan meter mechanisms for our individual meter heads and rotated out the oldest ones to improve meter reliability, and purchased 4 new muni-meters for the Gussack Plaza and Maple Drive lots. We receive fewer complaints now about failed meters.
You raise the issue of valet parking and even suggest that voters remember this issue when it is time to vote. We find this offensive.
Our village is the commercial hub of the peninsula and we have issues that none of the other peninsula villages have. The buses and railroad that benefits all the villages are located here.
With them being here, there are constant traffic issues that would be made more dangerous with valet parking. We have had pedestrians hit by cars whose drivers do not obey the traffic laws. They speed, make illegal U-turns, go through stop lights, roll through stop signs and double park, creating dangerous situations.
Unfortunately, our code enforcement officers cannot issue moving violations and have to rely on the Nassau County Police Department for traffic enforcement. But when we did allow valet parking, these dangerous situations became worse. Our responsibility to our residents is to provide a safe downtown.
Furthermore, valet parking requires that there be available space in nearby parking lots to park the cars.
While the Great Neck Park District’s three commuter lots, which are all located in the Plaza, sit largely empty in the evenings, the park district has been unwilling to make them available for use by customers of businesses in the village even though this would be a great benefit to small retail businesses, and especially new restaurants that are not yet established.
The village will continue to work with the Park District to develop a pilot attendant parking program to assist our merchants (restaurants and eateries) south of the LIRR tracks where parking is more difficult and further away from our municipal lots and garages.
You briefly mention the change in demographics in the Great Neck peninsula villages. This is not something that only has a minor impact.
Residents are not visiting, dining and buying from local stores as they used to, despite ongoing marketing campaigns by the BID and Chamber of Commerce encouraging the community to shop locally.
Add to that, the impact of online shopping, and we see a major effect, not only here in Great Neck, but stores such as Sears, Macy’s, JC Penny, K Mart and Toys R Us are closing. Recent newspaper stories of vacant stores on Fifth Avenue and in other areas of Manhattan demonstrate that this is not a problem confined to our area.
Finally, you take issue with the permit approval process saying that we should streamline it.
In fact, however, developers have told us that our Village is the easiest to work with and the most helpful.
Conditional-use permits required for new restaurants and eateries are often approved after a single Board of Trustees meeting, and the board meets twice a month so new applicants don’t have to wait long to be in front of Village government for their approval.
While delays may be caused by other governmental agencies, they are not caused by our Board of Trustees or Building Department.
We hope that in the future the Editor of the Great Neck News will do a better job of reaching out to local officials and more fully vet readers’ letters, editorials, and opinion pieces before they are published.
Mayor Jean Celender and Trustees Gerald Schneiderman, Pamela Marksheid and Lawrence Katz of the Village of Great Neck Plaza
Editors Note: As reflected in the headline,” Local Government Needs to Keep Up With Changes in Retail,” the recommendations in the editorial were addressed to local governments across our readership area – not just the Village of Great Neck Plaza. Issues with Great Neck Plaza were addressed specifically to Great Neck Plaza.
