Academy Gardens tenants protested a proposed plan to replace the rent-stabilized apartment complex with a market-value building on Sunday, saying they will not accept any amount of money to move out of their homes.
“We’re going to remain in Great Neck,” tenants association president Julie Shields told protesters gathered outside the complex on Middle Neck Road. “We’re not taking any amount of money.”
The tenants were joined by the Nassau National Action Network, Tenants Political Action Committee, members of the community as well as Village of Great Neck Deputy Mayor Mitchell Beckermann and Trustee Barton Sobel.
“I came here to support my neighbors,” Sobel said. “I live a couple of blocks away from here. I have friends in the building.”
The plan proposed by Kings Point Gate Associates is currently before Village of Great Neck Planning Board.
Attorney Paul Bloom, a former Village of Great Neck planning board chairman who is representing Kings Point Gate on the project, has stressed at several planning board meetings that the tenants are being treated fairly and will be paid six-years worth of rent after they move out of Academy Gardens, if the project is approved.
Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman, also a former chair of the Great Neck planning board, said at a January meeting of the Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees that the developer had the legal right to rebuild the site and he would not comment on the Academy Gardens proposal.
Sobel said that while the village does not have the legal right to stop the project, he still feels “terrible” about the situation the tenants have been placed in.
A crew from the Mitchell Lama Film Project was present at the rally, filming a documentary on affordable housing throughout New York, according to Maeve Cavadini, who works with the film crew.
Academy Gardens tenants have been in a months-long battle with Kings Point Gate Associates, the managing agent of the property, and David Adelipour, a former resident of Kings Point who owns the building, over a site=plan application for the market-rate units.
A similar proposal was made in 2007 by Adelipour, which was halted because the building would have required a zoning variance.
An updated plan was presented to the Village of Great Neck Planning Board late last year.
Many of the tenants of Academy Gardens are low-income minority families who said they could not afford to live in Great Neck if they were evicted from Academy Gardens.
An April 25 hearing on the proposal was postponed by planning board Chairman Charles Segal.
Segal said at the meeting the board was still in the process of choosing a civil rights expert to determine if the proposed construction would create a racial disparity in the Village of Great Neck.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Segal said, adjourning the public hearing until May 15.
Shields on Sunday dismissed Segal’s actions.
“It’s so obvious he just wants to push this through,” she said.
On Feb. 20, Segal had attempted to adjourn a public hearing after the planning board ruled they needed more information to determine if the proposal required a state environmental review. Segal allowed to permit the public comments at the suggestion of board members Raymond Iryami and Robin Gordon.
Kings Point Gate Associates on April 8 filed a lawsuit against the planning board in an effort to block a potential environmental study of the proposal.
The suit states that Kings Point Gate Associates’ intent to replace an existing residential building “obviates any environmental assessment procedure” under state law.
A hearing on the lawsuit was scheduled before Judge Thomas Feinman in Nassau County Civil Supreme Court on Wednesday, according to the court’s website.
Shileds, in a statement made at the protest, demanded Adelipour and Kings Point Gate agree to one of three options.
The first, Shields said, was for Adelipour to “withdraw his application and turn over the Academy Gardens complex to a responsible landlord.”
The second was for Adelipour to “construct a new building or complex containing at least 45 apartments within the Village of Great Neck, then turn the property over to a non-profit organization that will become the new owner.”
Shields also said Adelipour could “relocate all families in Academy Gardens to temporary housing within the Village of Great Neck, at Mr. Adelipour’s expense” and relocate all the families into the new building upon completion.
“We’re not taking anything else,” Shields said.
Efforts to reach Kings Point Gate for comments were unavailing.
The board in March approved the hiring of a civil rights consultant, to determine if the proposed construction would create a racial disparity in the Village of Great Neck.
Great Neck resident Jeff Gold said the amount of minorities in Nassau County was already low and that the demolition of Academy Gardens would impact it further.
“Why can’t we keep these neighbors in place,” Gold said. “These are exactly the type of people I want living in my neighborhood.”
But Shields said the tenants aren’t going to take the money.
Shields also said the building has been neglected by the manager and at the rally pointed out examples of how the building was “falling apart.”
Shields said some improvements were made after tenants brought the building’s condition to the attention of the Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees in February.
