BY GARY SIMEONE
roslyn@antonnmediagroup.com
The 2016 Village of Roslyn budget was approved unanimously at Tuesday night’s board meeting. The total general fund appropriations for the approved budget is $4,922,293.
“The budget issue was reviewed by the deputy mayor, Marshall Bernstein and myself,” said Mayor John Durkin. “Our village has worked hard to keep our costs down and I’m happy to say there is no tax increase again this year.”
However, the application for retaining wall not approved. Representatives from the property at 1900 Northern Blvd. were at the village board meeting on Tuesday night to discuss an application to add a surrounding retaining wall to the facility. The property is home to the North Bay Cadillac GMC Service Department. Board members did not approve the application and were concerned with particular aspects of the project.
“I thought we had agreed at the last meeting that this wall was going to be shifted over and lowered in height,” said Trustee Craig Westergard. “Frankly I’m disappointed because I thought we were reducing the scale of the this project and so far nothing has happened.”
The retaining wall will serve to conceal 28 additional parking spaces at the location. The wall and landscaping and plantings around the facility are the remaining items that need to be approved by the board.
Westergard said the village has a greenbelt that the community is proud of and that the board tries hard to avoid circumstances where people come in and strip it down.
“We have a bucolic setting here and once you make decision to cut down and remove trees, they are gone for good,” he said. “We’d rather try to avoid disturbing that particular wooded area by the LIRR (near the property.)”
Durkin asked that the applicants go back to the drawing board and step the walls height down a bit before resubmitting the application.
“We want to reduce the height of this wall and maybe lose a couple of parking spaces or this things not going to work,” said Durkin.
The hearing on the application will continue on May 19.
