Deadline looming for Harbor Isle

Posillico Development, of Farmingdale, in partnership with the Virginia-based Avalon Bay Communities, plans to build a development called the Battery at Harbor Isle & Avalon Yacht View in the southern corner of Harbor Isle, a community in Island Park. The $90 million project would include 140 rental apartments and 32 condominiums, most of them with boat slips.

While there is a growing controversy over whether the planned community would negatively impact Island Park or aid in its economic growth, the immediate question is whether the Town of Hempstead will lift a restrictive covenant limiting the number of rental units in any new development to 10 percent of the total number of units to be built.

While the town does not seem to be in any hurry to lift the covenant, Michael Posillico, the development corporation’s managing partner, says that there is a deadline looming for its decision, after which the project will be withdrawn.

The 11-acre site, which formerly hosted the Cibro oil transfer station, has been vacant for more than a decade. It is part of the New York State Brownfield Cleanup Program, which was set up to remediate toxic waste sites such as Cibro. As the landowner, Posillico has until the end of 2015 to clean up the site, at an estimated cost of $12 million. If the company were to miss that deadline, it would not be eligible for the brownfield program’s tax credits.

Posillico said that it is now up to the Town of Hempstead to allow the rental units that make the project economically viable. “If they decide not to do it, or do not make a decision by the end of June,” he said, “we will be pulling out at that time.”

The town, however, appears to be in no rush to meet that deadline. The first step is a public hearing, and the Harbor Isle project was not on the agenda for the town’s first public hearing of the month, scheduled for Tuesday. The next hearing is scheduled for June 18, and it is not unusual for the town board to reserve a decision at a public hearing.

“There are technical details that must be addressed, concerns and questions answered before the plan goes before the board,” town spokesman Michael Deery explained. “The town board does not operate on the deadline [dictated by] the developer.”

Island Park Chamber of Commerce President Glen Ingoglia, who favors the project, said this week that he does not believe that the town board is delaying addressing the issue. “That’s just the way it goes when you’re dealing with the town,” he said.