Woodmere Club owners sue Nassau County Planning Commission and Department of Public Works

The owners of the Woodmere Club have filed a lawsuit against the Nassau County Planning Commission and the county Department of Public Works.

The eight-page suit, filed in Nassau County Supreme Court on May 23, recently sent to the Herald, claims that owners Efrem Gerszberg and Robert Weiss have requested a date for a map approval hearing for their proposal to build housing on the club property, and the planning commission has refused to place it on its calendar.

In April 2021, the owners filed an application for a “major subdivision” comprising 54 building lots on the Woodmere Club acreage. Because of its proposed size, they are required to secure preliminary and final map approval, which includes a public hearing on the application for preliminary approval.

That application, the lawsuit argues, fulfills the requirements of a zoning plan devised by the Town of Hempstead and the villages of Lawrence and Woodsburgh. In July 2020, those municipalities created a Coastal Conservation District, which divided the 118-acre club property into three “subdistricts” —  an 83.3-acre parcel, designated an open/space recreation subdistrict; a single-family residential subdistrict of 29.4 acres; and a 5.7-acre clubhouse/hospitality subdistrict.

Gerszberg and Weiss originally proposed the construction of 284 single-family homes on the property. The Coastal Conservation District limited them to 59 homes, so they filed a lawsuit against the district in September 2020, but it was dismissed last December.

Their latest suit claims that in January 2022, the county planning commission told the owners that it would move forward with a preliminary map hearing if there were no comments or requests for information from either commission members or the Department of Public Works, and that the owners would obtain zoning compliance letters from the municipalities. The suit seeks a public hearing for preliminary map approval.

Attorney Christian Browne, who represents Gerszberg and Weiss, declined to comment.

Kevin Walsh, an engineer for over 30 years who works for VHB Engineering in Hauppauge, has been involved with more than 20 subdivision projects in Nassau County that have been subject to review by the planning commission.

“In my experience, on applications for the approval of major subdivision maps,” Walsh wrote in his response to the club owners’ request for the hearing, “It has been the practice of NCPC to authorize a hearing for preliminary map approval when the broad features of a proposed subdivision map have been set and when none of the comments or requests for information from any reviewing agency affects the map’s principal features.”

In the suit, the owners said that the comments and requests they had received did not concern the proposed lots.

In Walsh’s response, he wrote that  over the course of 18 months, he and VHB have answered at least four rounds of comments and requests from the NCPC and DPW, pertaining to specific and technical engineering matters, such as storm drainage, water main plans and details, electric and gas distribution routing, dedication of roadways, off-side roadway and traffic signal.

“There is no legitimate basis to refuse to authorize a preliminary map approval hearing for the Subdivision Application,” Walsh wrote. “All the outstanding comments/requests from the NCPC and the DPW can and will be addressed following the preliminary map approval and prior to final map approval.”

As of press time, county spokesman Christopher Boyle had not responded to a request for comment.

Last month, Gerszberg and Browne applied to the Lawrence Board of Appeals for a use variance in order to build outside the perimeter of the Coastal Conservation District, in what Browne calls “open space.”

Browne and the club owners have submitted similar applications to the town and to Woodsburgh.

No date has been set for a town hearing, and a hearing in Woodsburgh, initially scheduled for Aug. 2, was postponed to Sept. 20. It will be held at Woodsburgh Village Hall, at 30 Piermont Ave. in Hewlett, at 7 p.m.

The Lawrence Board of Appeals adjourned last month’s hearing, and made the recommendation that the three boards the town and the two villages hear the Woodmere Club owners’ presentation.

Have an opinion on the issues surround the Woodmere Club? Send a letter to jbessen@liherald.com.