Village of Roslyn trustees adjourned public hearing Tuesday on a proposal to construct a retaining wall on the rear of North Bay Cadillac Buick GMC on Northern Boulevard.
The repair is also seeking to continue a chain-linked fence from the front of the building, which is owned by 1900 Northern Realty, around to meet the wall to mask the hill at the rear of the property, architect John Nataro said..
The board initially expressed support for the proposal until learning that there were no landscaping plans for the property.
“I don’t like this at all,” Trustee Craig Westergard said. “I didn’t initially understand your explanations but you’re building a huge parking lot here.”
Nataro said his clients aren’t building a parking lot, only expanding the current space that would accommodate 28 more cars.
This seems like a “forget the landscape and let’s just put a wall up there, Westergard added.
“How many trees are being removed,” asked Trustee Sarah Oral.
“They’re a bunch but nothing can be grown on the land since it’s a hill with scraggly dead wood and trees,” Nataro said.
Mayor John Durkin said the village is going to lose the greenscape come spring when the “scraggly wooded area” blossoms if the site plan is approved.
“I think you need to soften the project with some greenscape plan. Some more green added to that project will do it a lot of good,” Durkin added.
Nataro told board members that their concerns and requests are valid and got a push back from the clients on some of the ideas he brought on.
“I came in late in the project and I got a lot of push back on some of my suggestions of a green plan,” he said.
Durkin said he didn’t have any issues with a parking lot but that the property needs to look presentable.
“I think you have to go back and make it look pretty. I know they do auto repair work in there and I get that its not a showroom but a little more landscaping perhaps will do the space a lot of good,” Durkin said.
Nataro also said they would like to add lights that will reflect back to the building because it kinds of disappears at night.
Peter Mineola, an attorney representing 1900 Northern Realty, said he would work with his client and the architect to figure out a way to satisfy the board’s objections and that they’ll be back the following month.
“I mean we’ve got a month to figure this out,” Mineola said. “At least they were specific with what the wanted and for good reason too.”
