Woodsburgh village reviews revised Woodmere Club development plan
The Woodsburgh village board was busy at its reorganization meeting on July 24, making appointments and once again hearing from an attorney representing the developers of the Woodmere Club, who applied for a subdivision of the property.
Two days before the village board meeting at Stella K. Abraham High School, the developers, Efrem Gerszberg and Robert Weiss, presented the board and residents with a revised plan for the club property, whose future development has generated no shortage of controversy since 2016.
At a June 17 meeting with the village, Weiss had unveiled a plan that included the construction of 160 condominiums for seniors on the Woodmere portion of the property and five residential lots on Ivy Hill Road in Woodsburgh. The plan was not well received by residents, who fear that the Ivy Hill Road lots could cause additional flooding in an area that is already plagued by it.
“There were a number of homes in Woodsburgh that appeared to create challenges in building on that particular part of the property,” Mayor Jake Harman told the Herald after the July 22 meeting. “And they took that into consideration and took that out in the modified proposal,” he added, referring to the developers.
Lauren Sobel, a Woodsburgh resident and a member of the Woodsburgh Alliance, a grass-roots community organization, wrote in an email on July 29 that she was happy with the negotiations, but felt there was more to be done.
“While many of us agree that construction of one condo complex will have much less of an impact on the village overall, we still have concerns,” Sobel said, referring to the age-restricted condos. “Our primary priority is protecting the residents and traffic flow on Meadow (Drive), including opposing any point of entry into the complex from Meadow. We believe there are ways to create distinct entrances from Broadway for residents, employees and deliveries.”
Sobel said she also hoped there would be thorough traffic and environmental-impact studies, including soil testing for now-banned pesticides which may have been used on the Woodmere Club’s golf course in the past.
Lawrence Mayor Samuel Nahmias said the two villages planned to create a six-resident committee to discuss the condominium plan and get the ball rolling on garnering support from the Town of Hempstead.
“Conceptually, it’s a better idea, in my opinion,” Nahmias told the Herald on Monday.
At the Woodsburgh village reorganization meeting and Woodmere Club planning meeting at Village Hall on July 24, Christian Browne, the attorney for Gerszberg and Weiss, asked on behalf of his clients for the village to approve the redrawing of the lot lines for the proposed development plan.
“Mr. Weiss, he was emphatic in his desire that this be taken care of expeditiously,” Browne said. “He asked me to repeat that and stress how important it is to my client that this application be granted, again, not because it allows anything else to happen there, but because it is more conducive to their management of the property for real estate conveyance purposes, and we see no reason why the application can’t be granted, since it doesn’t change anything except the way the tax map is drawn.”
Woodsburgh residents urged the board to hold off approval of redrawing the lot lines until the developers put forward a completed plan.
The village board pushed the vote on the matter to a special meeting on Aug. 19, at 6 p.m., at Village Hall, at 30 Piermont Ave. in Hewlett, so it can consider it further, trustees said.
“If you don’t mind, also going back to your client to convey, as was said here tonight, there is very, very strong support to move forward with a proposal that everybody feels very good about, and they don’t want to diminish that level of support,” Harman said, assuring Browne of the village’s stance.
Have an opinion on the new
Woodmere Club proposal?
Send a letter to jbessen@liherald.com.
