City Council members oppose HALB site plan

Three more Long Beach City Council members have spoken out against proposed luxury condominium towers at the site of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, a week after Councilman Scott Mandel called on the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals to reject the project.

At the Oct. 5 City Council meeting, council members Eileen Goggin and Anissa Moore voiced their opposition to a variance a developer is seeking to build two 154-foot-tall luxury condominium towers on the property, at 530 W. Broadway, an area that currently has a height limit of 40 feet.

Long Beach resident Dina Fiore, a member of the Long Beach Neighbors Against Overdevelopment — a group that has hired an attorney to fight the developers — said the project is “out of character” for the Westholme neighborhood and would “tax our already overburdened infrastructure.” She called on the council members to voice their position to the project.

“Publicly, I, too, am opposed to this project,” Goggin told the crowd, many of whom held signs protesting the proposal. “Thank you for coming. Everyone here, I acknowledge your presence and your presence at past meetings. When this does go before the zoning board, I plan to speak and articulate my position.”

HALB is still operating in Long Beach, but is scheduled to relocate to Woodmere in the coming months. Developers are in contract negotiations to purchase the property, contingent on whether a variance is granted, city officials said.

Wittek Development and Sackman Enterprises — which filed a variance with the zoning board under the name 73rd Meridian Partners LLC — began presenting their plans to various civic associations in May and June, where they met strong opposition from many residents. Initially seeking to build 15-story towers connected by eight townhouses — totaling 166 units — the developers recently scaled back the project to 130 units in two 12-story buildings. The project also includes plans for a 292-space parking garage, in the hope of alleviating parking concerns.

The city’s Building Department issued a denial letter to the developers in July, saying that the project exceeded a number of zoning requirements, including the height limit, building area, side yards and density. The developers are now a seeking variance in all four categories, and though a hearing was scheduled for Oct. 13, 73rd Meridian Partners requested an adjournment, which the ZBA was to vote on at that meeting.

“We can welcome and encourage development, but not overdevelopment,” Moore said, “because this is about maintaining the quality of life for our residents.”

Councilman Scott Mandel didn’t speak about the project at the Oct. 5 meeting, but called the variance “excessive” in a guest column in the Herald last month and urged the zoning board to deny the request.

City Council Vice President Anthony Eramo, a Democrat running for the State Assembly, told the Herald after the meeting that he also opposed the project. “The proposal that’s out there right now, I think, is way too big for a property that is less than two acres,” he said, “and way too high for an area that is zoned residential.”

Council President Len Torres, a former member of the zoning board, said the council had not yet taken a collective position. “This is something that we need to study a little bit more,” he told the Herald last week. “One of the things that we’re very much in favor of is to bring in jobs for folks in Long Beach, stimulating the economy, but at the same time, we’re concerned. The overdevelopment aspect is real, but what we’re looking at is whether or not the benefits outweigh the negatives, and right now we really don’t have a clear picture.”

Torres said that he agreed with Mandel that there are zoning issues with the project, and noted that he opposed the construction of Sea Pointe Towers in 2004 because of the density of the project.

In 2014, the City Council settled the city’s lawsuit against iStar Financial, the owner of long-vacant Superblock property, for $5.25 million, the terms of which included the city’s support for a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, for an unspecified term. The zoning board subsequently approved a variance that allowed iStar to move forward with a project that included 522 apartments in twin 160-foot-tall buildings on the Superblock and retail space along the boardwalk. In July, the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency denied iStar’s request for a 20-year, $109 million tax abatement amid overwhelming opposition from residents.

In February, Eramo spoke in favor of the iStar project at an IDA hearing, saying that a labor agreement would create hundreds of local construction jobs and needed revenue for local businesses. But Eramo has emphasized that he never spoke in favor of the tax incentive, and city officials had declined to speak for or against the tax abatement, citing potential litigation.

Residents looking to halt development on West Broadway have acknowledged that the public felt “blindsided” by the iStar project and the proposed tax break, which sparked criticism of the council and spurred a movement against what they have called overdevelopment.

Torres said he was disappointed with iStar for originally claiming it had the money to do the project, and then seeking a large tax break following approval from the zoning board. Because of that, he said, he is more leery of development projects, like the one proposed at the HALB site, and said he is cautious when studying such deals.

“We are very sensitive to the folks who are very upset at the height, the density issue, traffic, how it taxes people and our resources,” Torres said. “You really can’t blame people for feeling that way.”