The first time a car hit his house three years ago, Emmanuel Kashi said it crashed through a fence and the back yard of his Village of Great Neck home, before putting a large crack in the wall on the outside of his son’s bedroom.
Kashi said his family was lucky when last month another car crashed through the same fence and into the front yard of his Margot Place residence instead of hitting the house.
For several Village of Great Neck neighbors, who live behind a parking lot used by what Croyden Avenue resident Ken Sperber said was up to seven businesses on Middle Neck Road, living with the constant fear of cars hitting their homes has become an everyday occurrence.
“It’s happening all the time,” said Village of Great Neck resident Jay Mitzner, who also lives on Margot Place, of the car accidents. “It’s not a rare occurrence. This is a real, real danger there. It’s just a matter of time. Somebody is going to get hurt, that’s for sure.”
Several residents attended the Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees meeting last Tuesday to ask officials to place a guard rail between their homes and the parking lot, which is situated behind the Everfresh supermarket at 533 Middle Neck Road.
“Cars that are parked, instead of going forward, they go in reverse and hit the fence,” Kashi said.
But for Village of Great Neck trustees, the question was – who is responsible for putting up the guard rail?
“This isn’t unique,” Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman said. “It is a problem. We will focus on it. We will discuss it in public at the next meeting.”
The board of trustees tabled the motion for the placement of the guard rail until their Tuesday, July 17 meeting to allow for further discussion about whose responsibility it is for the placement of a guard rail or concrete bollards to protect the homes behind the parking lot.
“We can’t stop drivers from doing the wrong thing,” Kreitzman said. “We don’t want anyone hurt and we’re really concerned about this, but we then have to focus on this from the perspective of a village as a whole.”
“Money is very hard and we’re trying to do more with less here,” the mayor added. “What you’re proposing would be a major, major expense.”
Kreitzman said the concern over cars hitting homes or businesses is shared throughout the village.
“We have problems in our village with respect to cars and traffic all over the place,” the mayor said. “We have cars running into buildings all the time. Just recently (a car) ran into a storefront sideways on Middle Neck Road. We can’t control traffic the way we’d like to.”
And that is why it may be the responsibility of the individual homeowners living near the parking lot behind the Everfresh supermarket to pay for the installation of any guard rails, Kreitzman said.
“You’ve made a statement that we have to do something about it,” he said. “We’ve had a number of properties built on Middle Neck Road where we have required the owner to put up bollards because we have been concerned about safety. You can put up bollards, but don’t say we have to.”
But for Kashi, Kreitzman’s suggestion did not go far enough.
“You have to do what you have to do as a village to protect the residents of Great Neck, bottom line,” Kashi said. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Kashi said he first approached the village about placing a guard rail in the parking lot after his home was hit by a car in 2009. He said he was then informed through a letter from Kreitzman that “because it’s a rare occurrence, there’s nothing that could be done at that time.”
After his house was nearly struck by a car again in June, Kashi said it became time for village officials to act.
“You claim that this was a rare occurrence, that this never happens, that lightning (never) strikes twice,” Kashi said. “That line is comical to me.”
Kreitzman said that characterization of what village officials advised Kashi to do was not entirely accurate.
“My recollection is when you came to us we said that we weren’t putting up a guard rail at the village expense, but you could put up bollards or a guard rail or something,” Kreitzman said.
Kashi said he requested bids to have a guard rail placed behind the store, but it was too expensive for him to pay for.
To have a guard rail placed along his 100-foot long yard, Kashi said it would cost between $5,000 and $6,000, which is too much for any one resident to have to pay to protect their home.
That is why the village should pay for the installation of a guard rail.
“We have to open our eyes,” Kashi said. “You can’t call it a rare occurrence when it constantly happens. It just happened three weeks ago. When it happened two years ago you said it wouldn’t happen again.”
Ken Sperber, who attended the meeting with his wife Olga, said the fence between their home and the parking lot has also been crashed through twice by cars.
“The parking lot doesn’t have nothing to stop the cars,” Olga Sperber said. “Only (one) fence. This is a house that is only five feet from the place.”
And it should be up to the village to protect its residents, Ken Sperber said.
“The village needs to take some action to prevent a real tragedy from happening,” he said. “If no action is taken, as sure as I’m standing here tonight, there will be additional problems and, God forbid, there may be a death.”
Village of Great Neck attorney Stephen Limmer said residents are allowed to place a guard rail behind the parking lot at their own expense.
“They shouldn’t wait for this board to take action if they think that such action is necessary on their part,” Limmer said. “This board will give them the permission to do that.”
In the event another car leaving the parking lot hits a home, Limmer said the village will not be held liable.
“Public safety is very important to us,” Kreitzman said. “When you say ‘just spend tax money and not your money,’ I mean, tax money is your money and everyone else’s.”
