New Hyde Park residents will have to wait until the new year to hear about the effect a motorcycle dealership might have on the surrounding neighborhood.
John Notaro, the architect behind the proposed Harley-Davidson store, said the applicant will ask to postpone the hearing scheduled for Dec. 15 because studies on how the dealership would affect traffic, noise and property values in the area have yet to be conducted.
“In all likelihood we don’t know everyone will be ready with their experts,” New Hyde Park Mayor Robert Lofaro said Tuesday.
Vocal opposition from residents at an October hearing prompted the village board to ask applicant Amir Jarrah, owner of Miracle Mile Harley-Davidson in Great Neck, to commission the studies and present them at a second hearing, originally set for November 17.
The village will also conduct its own studies. Because it has never had to retain its own experts before, the board passed a law in October requiring applicants to cover the cost of the studies.
“We’re quick learners and we make adjustments as quickly as we need to,” Lofaro said.
The village is waiting for Jarrah to pay the now-required $10,000 deposit on his application before it contracts any experts, Lofaro said.
The payment is “imminent,” Notaro said, and Jarrah plans to continue moving forward with the application, contradictory to rumors among residents that the team was considering a different site outside the village.
Notaro said he and Jarrah have received several proposals for the three studies, which he thinks will “mitigate” residents’ concerns. The applicants also asked to postpone the hearing in November.
“We want to find people that are unrefuteable, because we want make sure the neighbors know that we went out for the best studies we could find,” he said. “… I think that the facts will be on our side.”
The dealership would replace a group of buildings at 1324 Jericho Turnpike with a 27-foot structure containing an 8,000-square-foot showroom, a 6,000-square-foot basement repair shop and 1,500 square feet of second-floor office space.
Because Jericho Turnpike is an already noisy commercial area, Notaro said, he thinks the noise study is “unusual,” adding that he’s only had to commission one other study in his 30 years in the business.
But several residents at the October hearing said the motorcycles would exacerbate a noise problem in the adjacent residential neighborhood caused by helicopters flying over the area and nearby Long Island Rail Road trains.
Opponents also said the dealership would alter the village’s character and isn’t right for a property near churches and homes with young children.
The village asked for a noise study, Lofaro said, because testimony at the public hearing indicated motorcycles with modified exhaust system coming into the shop could be as loud as 100 decibels or more. Village code allows a maximum daytime noise level of 65 decibels for commercial properties.
“(I)t was agreed that a sound engineer would be in a better position to explain the impact to the proposed site and the surrounding area,” Lofaro said in an email.
