Roslyn Estates starts earliest phases of park planning, digital storage

The Island Now
The Roslyn Estates Board of Trustees discussed plans for a playground and digital file storage at their meeting on Monday. (Photo by Rebecca Melnitsky)

By Rebecca Melnitsky

Plans for a park in Roslyn Estates are in the earliest phases.

At the village meeting on Monday, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution approving funds to pay for a topographical survey, a landscape architect and a conceptual design for a playground. The funds must not exceed $5,000, according to the resolution.

So far, the village has agreed that the park would be at the southeast corner of the intersection of Northern Boulevard and Searingtown Road. The village has also determined it has the title to the intended land.

A landscape architect would look at the land and determine how the property could be made into a playground, including drainage, pathways, and lighting.

“But to get started on anything, [the landscape architect] needed a topographical survey,” said Trustee Brett Auerbach. “We had a very old boundary survey.”

According to figures the village has received so far, a topographical survey could cost $1,650, while mapping the area and its boundaries could cost an additional $2,250. Auerbach said it would be a good idea to have an updated boundary survey anyway.

The survey will most likely take place in the spring, or earlier if there are some warm days this winter. The board expects to have a conceptual plan in the next two months.

Once a plan is in place, the village board can start accepting proposals and prices for a playground.

Board members also discussed scanning all home plans, blueprints, and records and storing them digitally, so residents could access them by searching a database.

Garden City Park–based Seery Systems currently stores all of the village’s records but not the original files, according to Village Clerk Michael P. Tomicich.

He said the original files are stored in a back room in Village Hall in an area that is not fireproof, and the cabinets are full and difficult to open.

“I think this is the way of the future,” Tomicich said of digital storage. “We don’t have to [do it] now… everybody is going to be looking at this stuff online and they want to see it online.”

Seery Systems would charge about $44,000 to scan and digitize all of the records. The village is currently reducing duplicates and redundancies in the current files and removing plans for houses that no longer exist.

The board also discussed splitting the cost over the next two years, looking for possible grants, or not scanning the oversized blueprints to reduce the cost estimate.

In the meantime, the trustees decided to look into requiring applications for building permits to submit a digital copy of plans, as well as paper, so the village can start building a virtual record.

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