to: Board of Zoning Appeals, Village of Great Neck
to: Board of Trustees, Village of Great Neck
from: Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar
date: January 25, 2021
re: illegitimate BZA hearing scheduled for February 2021 on: case 2522: 733-741 Middle Neck Road, 6 and 8 North Road, 7 Hicks Lane, all inclusive
As you are aware, the BZA hearing scheduled on the January 2021 agenda about this mammoth project did not go forward because there had been a claim that a persuasive number of residents within the 200’ radius had not been notified of the hearing as the law requires.
Now, subsequently, the hearing has appeared on the BZA agenda for next month, February, but this, too, should be canceled. This project has had illegal submissions to the BZA by the developer going back to at least the September 3 and October 1 meetings in 2020 that had the ongoing hearing for this project.
The BZA cannot go forward without going back and starting over, at least not legally.
The tentative and incomplete assessment of residents living within the 200’ radius on the east side of Middle Neck Road is as follows:
22 residents were not notified of the meeting dates for the hearing on this project.
The tentative and incomplete assessment of residents living within the 200’ radius on the west side of Middle Neck Road is as follows:
65 residents were not notified.
The BZA needs to investigate, to ascertain the exact number of people who should have been notified and those who should be notified going forward. Once probity has been established, the BZA will be able to begin again and schedule a hearing on this application. The BZA can no longer claim it is ready to do site plan review. The application’s paperwork has been dishonest.
The developer has no grounds for complaining given that he was willing to perpetrate an illegal process that brought the members of the zoning board into disrepute and hoodwinked the residents of our village.
In addition:
1. The certified letters arrived by regular delivery and were not signed for.
2. The developer had no claim to a hardship in his quest to invade the Residence C zone. This four-story apartment complex would loom over a private home at a distance of only 15 feet. It is outrageous, something neighbors would have battled against had they been told.
3. Even though the village code does not require the board of trustees to do a notification for its separate architectural review of this project, residents were disturbed that the trustees did not replicate the notification process required of the BZA. The trustees paid no deference to openness and the impact of a development of this magnitude, not to mention the precedent it sets for approvals of ever greedier overdevelopment that insults our suburban community.
Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar
Great Neck
