Village of Great Neck approves Forest Row home demolitions

The Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved the demolition of six houses on Forest Row that a developer wants to replace with eight single-family homes.
In February, the Village of Great Neck Planning Board approved Forest Glen LLC’s plan to subdivide the two lots at 43-45 Forest Row and 47 Forest Row into eight lots.
Six houses and four garages currently sit on the property, according to documents filed with the village.
A representative for the builders, Shayan Hakimian of Eldorado Construction, urged the board to grant the demolition permit because the vacant houses are causing safety problems.
“It’s dangerous,” Hakimian said. “There’s a fence with a padlock, but the kids keep going into the houses. The padlock gets broken. Cars are dumped there.”
Village Clerk-Treasurer Joe Gill said there are no specific building plans yet, but the developer has said it will likely build eight homes on the site.
Work had stalled because of the need to build a road on the site that must lead through one of the existing houses, Hakimian said.
The builder needed a demolition permit to build the road and continue with development of the properties, he said.
VIllage Mayor Pedram Bral said he was concerned about the danger of having a vacant property with craters where the basements had been.
Hakimian said the land would be flattened and construction would start as soon as possible after demolition.
Also on Tuesday, a representative for Everfresh supermarket told the board its plan to change traffic patterns around its Middle Neck Road store would be “extremely minimal,” according to a traffic study.
The board put off a decision on Everfresh’s proposed changes, which would keep the south driveway as both an entrance and exit, but the north driveway would become an exit only. The east side of the store’s parking lot would also be limited to one-way travel.
“There would be one way in and two ways out,” said Howard Hassen, the representative for the store.
Trustees had questions about whether Everfresh was planning a physical expansion and whether it would affect the traffic study, pointing to a stack of lumber in the store’s parking lot.
“What are they doing with them?” Bral said.
Hassen said he could provide more information by the end of December, and the board decided to wait until then to make a decision on the changes.
Jean Pearce, a resident, said she saw Everfresh vans parked in a “No Parking” zone by the north entrance, forcing a big delivery truck to double-park on Middle Neck Road.
Hassen said he had never seen that happen.
Village officials told Pearce to call village parking enforcement officers to report problems.