Parkwood Court residents call on village to regulate commercial deliveries

Residents of Parkwood Court are calling on village officials to restrict late-night and early-morning deliveries to a nearby nursing center, as well as to redirect employee and visitor parking away from their block.

“This is not a short history,” said Peter D’Andrilli, who has lived on the dead-end street for seven years. “That’s why it’s come to this point.”

D’Andrilli sent a letter to Mayor Francis Murray and the Rockville Centre’s Board of Trustees earlier this month imploring them to consider imposing village-wide restrictions on commercial deliveries between the hours of 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. on Monday through Saturday, and to prohibit deliveries on Sundays and holidays.

Early-morning deliveries to the Grand Pavilion for Nursing and Rehabilitation, on the corner of Parkwood and North Centre Avenue, have disrupted the neighborhood for years, residents said.

Parkwood Court resident Linda Young, who has lived on the block for nearly 33 years, said that up until recently, delivery trucks would park on her street, blocking residents from leaving. She added that a dumpster on Grand Pavilion’s property in recent years was overflowing, and other neighbors have spotted rats.

“It’s a quality of life issue,” D’Andrilli said. “…When you buy a house on this block, you’re aware ... of that building on the corner, but you don’t know the extent to which you’re going to have to deal with the absurdities of how they conduct their business.”

The village helped get the dumpster removed and had a sign put up more than a year ago to prohibit delivery trucks from entering Parkwood Court, according to Mayor Murray, which he said has alleviated the problem. “Whenever you have commercial abutting residential, there’s usually an issue,” he said. “I feel for them and I do everything I can for them.”

Police issue tickets to truck drivers that come onto Parkwood, he added.

“We try to mediate . . . and try to do the right thing by both parties,” said Rockville Centre Police Commissioner Charles Gennario, adding that there is a no-tolerance policy for trucks on that street. “…The cops know if they’re called to Parkwood Court, they’re going to issue a summons.”

Though delivery trucks have stayed off Parkwood Court lately, Young said, deliverymen often stop on North Centre Avenue — where they have been asked to unload from — and wheel large bins down the sidewalk to Grand Pavilion’s Parkwood entrance.

“It wakes my husband and I up every single morning,” Young said, noting that some deliveries come as early as 4 a.m. “…If the board in our town lived on this block, I think they’d come up with some reason not to have this done. We’re the forgotten block.”

Mayor Murray said it is not feasible for the village to prohibit late-night and early-morning deliveries, noting that Rockville Centre has a vibrant downtown with many businesses. “It’s the best time to get deliveries,” he said. “…You don’t want people having trucks all over the village when business is going on.”

Murray added, however, that he has spoken with representatives of Grand Pavilion, which recently changed management, and that they have been listening to residents’ pleas for later deliveries.

“In the past, there have been a few concerns with some of our vendors arriving early in the morning, causing a potential disturbance,” Simon Fuerst, administrator of Grand Pavilion, wrote in a statement. “We have and will continue to ensure that this does not happen, and will continue working with our vendors to ensure that their teams do not begin work before 8 a.m.”

As for Grand Pavilion’s employees and visitors parking on Parkwood, which residents said have crowded the street, Murray said there is a two-hour limit on street parking in that area, and that those parked there all day would be ticketed.

This type of problem is not unique to Parkwood court, village officials said, citing similar concerns near the corners of North Long Beach Road and Seaman Avenue as well as South Long Beach Road and Hanscom Place, where businesses border residential areas.

“We monitor it, we try to help and we care so much for our residents,” Murray said. “We’ll always try to help them.”