A state appellate court upheld its decision in early June that the Town of North Hempstead’s Board of Zoning and Appeals had acted properly in granting Gino’s Pizzeria and Restaurant area variances and a conditional-use permit in its proposal for a new sit-down restaurant at 429 Plandome Road.
The Town of North Hempstead granted the area variances, which sought the relaxation of town code requirements regarding parking and loading zones, on May 25, 2011, but Colin Realty Co., LLC, which owns property adjacent to the proposed restaurant, appealed the decision and sued in appellate court when the appeal was denied.
Colin Realty, located at 1520 Northern Boulevard, argued that a use variance was required in converting the storefront into a restaurant.
The court ruled the zoning board properly determined that the variances Gino’s applied for were in accordance with town code, according to a document explaining the ruling posted on the state appellate court’s Web site.
According to the document, the court’s decision was made based on a required balancing test weighing the benefits the variance would provide the applicant against the detriment the variance would be to the health, safety and welfare of the neighborhood.
Efforts to reach Colin Realty were unavailing.
The storefront at 429 Plandome Road had been built without taking into account parking or loading zones because at the time of its construction, the town code did not include such requirements.
North Hempstead now requires one off-street parking space for every four seats or four people as well as one space per employee, according to the decision. The restaurant, as proposed, would have required 24 parking spaces.
Gino’s, identified in the ruling as “Manhasset Pizza, LLC.,” applied for area variances to convert the storefront into a 45-seat Italian restaurant.
But the initial proposal did not include the revised requirements and the pizzeria applied for area variances in addition to a conditional use permit from the North Hempstead Board of Zoning and Appeals.
The ruling listed factors a zoning board takes into account when deciding whether to issue a variance, which includes whether the variance would create an undesirable change in the neighborhood or be a detriment to nearby properties, whether the applicant can achieve the variance’s benefits without pursuing a variance, whether the variance is substantial, whether the variance would have an adverse impact on or impact the physical environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district and whether the reason for the variance was self-created, which would be relevant to the board of appeals but would not preclude the granting of the variance.
The court ruled that the zoning board properly engaged in the balancing test, that the variances would not have an adverse impact on the area and that the board reached its conclusion based on its members’ own personal knowledge of the area as well as from testimony from a traffic engineer hired by Gino’s, who concluded that ample parking existed within two nearby lots as well as on-street spaces.
According to the ruling, Colin Realty conducted its own traffic study, which concluded the proposed restaurant would crowd on-street parking but that enough spaces were available in nearby lots.
