“Signed, sealed and delivered. It’s our property now,” said Manhasset Park District Chairman Mark Sauvigne, of the recently acquired 61 Locust St. property.
Sauvigne and his fellow commissioners have no plans to leave its colonial home standing, as it would prevent them from paving the 16-spot parking lot they plant to create.
The commissioners are “always on the lookout” for areas with similar potential, Sauvigne said, but acknowledged that “property is not cheap in Manhasset.”
The Manhasset Park District currently owns and operates six parking lots, according to Mike Ilkiw, secretary to the Board of Commissioners. These include 503 railroad spots requiring permits, 133 metered spots and 112 unmetered merchant spots, the latter of which is paid for annually by business owners.
Jimmy Shirley, a Huntington resident who works in Manhasset, is thankful for his parking space on Park Avenue. It means that he does not have to battle other commuters for a parking spot when he opts to take the train into Manhattan after a day at the office.
Shirley does not expect this competition to diminish any time soon. “It’s such an old town,” he said. “I think if it were a newer town, they would have prepared for it.”
Maximizing the use of office parking is not the only way that creative commuters avoid the stress that accompanies the designated Long Island Rail Road lot. Roslyn firefighter Joseph Biasi accepts the courtesy that members of the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department Co. 1 extend, allowing him to park at the Bayview Avenue firehouse that is walking distance from the station.
During rush hour, Biasi makes it to Penn Station in less than 30 minutes.
“The first issue is that the train line is so good,” Sauvigne explained, noting that non-residents will pay hundreds of dollars per month to commute from Manhasset instead of the surrounding north shore towns where they reside.
Sauvigne is aware that the demand for parking far outweighs Manhasset’s supply, and commuters are therefore turning to lots that are not under the Park District’s umbrella. Of these, there are a limited amount of legal options, with owners holding permits issued by the Town of North Hempstead’s Board of Zoning and Appeals.
One such lot stands on the A & M Automotive of Plandome, Inc. property, located at 260 Plandome Rd. Owner Mark Petersen holds a permit for 30 parking spaces and rents each for $300 per month. When commuters go on vacation, Petersen offers the temporarily vacant spots for $25 per day to individuals on a waiting list.
Petersen said most of his clients are out of towners – 95 percent stem from communities such as Brookville, Muttontown and Oyster Bay – but he maintains that parking is not easy for Manhasset residents, either.
“There are days when … those parking lots are full at 8:30 in the morning,” he said, noting that mid-morning commuters who hold permits are often unable to find empty spaces.
Few businesses hold the permit that A & M Automotive of Plandome, Inc. does, but according to Plandome Road Parking Committee member Sue Auriemma, illegal options are rampant throughout Manhasset.
Advertisements for office or driveway parking spaces available for rent are not hidden, she said, but rather posted on bulletin boards at the Manhasset train station.
Still, the hands of enforcement officials are tied – for the time being, at least.
“The inspector would have to do a sting operation, get a cash receipt, have some kind of evidence,” said Andrew DeMartin, Town of North Hempstead Public Safety commissioner, noting that he has “openly discussed” altering town laws to resemble those already in existence to combat illegal housing. Officials can currently issue tickets to individuals advertising illegal apartments.
DeMartin believes that this would curb – but not eliminate – illegal parking within Manhasset, as the community is “probably 1,200 spots short to stop the parking.” He therefore suggests further measures, such as involving the Internal Revenue Service.
“Most of these [parking] businesses are cash based and they’re probably not paying taxes on [their earnings],” DeMartin said. “The bigger crime here would be the avoidance of paying taxes on these kinds of spots – cash enterprises.”
The members of the Plandome Road Parking Committee are biding their time, first directing their efforts toward Freedom of Information Law requests they plan to submit to the Town of North Hempstead in January.
Co-Chairman Ed Wassmer, owner of Young’s Fine Wine & Spirits on Plandome Road, has a firsthand understanding of the struggles to find downtown merchant and consumer parking. He hopes these FOIL requests will elucidate the dates when the Board of Zoning and Appeals issued permits for parking space rentals, which businesses hold them and how many spaces each are allowed to lease.
Wassmer has been told that Manhasset needs a multilevel parking lot, but he disagrees. “Plandome Road is a long commercial district,” he explained. “If you put a central parking lot in, it’s not going to service the ends that aren’t close to the lot.”
Wassmer instead believes that drivers require satellite parking lots that offer shuttles to Plandome Road. He noted a Nassau County-owned parcel of land situated near the intersection of Bayview Avenue and Maple Street as ideal for this purpose, but because it would require an inter-municipal agreement between the town and county, will wait to broach the subject until newly elected become situated in their new positions.
Other options to increase parking throughout the business district involve the Manhasset Park District’s continued acquisition of properties, such as the recently purchased 61 Locust St.
Sauvigne is open to creating a tax incentive program for owners willing to sell or lease land to the Park District or Town. Still, the question of cost continues to nag involved parties as they seek to remedy the area’s automotive congestion.
Property owners like Petersen understand the value of their coveted land, and will not let it go unless the price is right. Although no one has approached him directly, Petersen said he heard gossip about the Town’s interest a year ago.
“I’d be looking for probably close to $2 million for the property,” he said.
Although such a sale would send Petersen into a comfortable retirement, he stated his position that more cost effective options exist. One such idea involves converting the Mary Jane Davies Green – situated on Plandome Road, steps away from the train station – into a parking lot. Petersen acknowledged its aesthetic appeal, but said this must be “weighed out” against the current parking situation.
At the end of the day, Auriemma said the Plandome Road Parking Committee’s “real focus” is on increasing the inventory of available parking spaces for shoppers.
While members are investigating ways to reduce the “cottage industry” spawned by illegal lots, Auriemma maintains that it will only reduce traffic created by non-residents commuting from the Manhasset train station.
“It won’t help to revitalize our downtown,” she said.
