Garden City residents are getting their fill of public hearings. With St. Paul's at the forefront of the news these past few months, another important topic the village is now weighing in on is the fate of properties currently located within a public "P" zoning district commonly referred to as the Mineola Complex. Although the properties have a Mineola address, the buildings are geographically located within Garden City's borders.

Village officials are responding to an announcement Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi made last year in which he described a possible countywide consolidation plan. The proposal includes the sale of these properties, which are generally located between Old Country Road to the north, Eleventh Street to the south, Washington Avenue to the east and Franklin Avenue and West Street to the west.

Suozzi hopes to fuse the county workforce, potentially with a smaller number of buildings spread out in a more organized fashion. Further, selling off any surplus buildings could provide much-needed revenue for a financially strapped Nassau County.

The current zoning district offers no specific controls in terms of bulk, floor area and building height and allows only governmental uses. Suozzi, in his interest to possibly sell off the properties to private developers, must get Garden City's permission to change the zoning of the aforementioned properties. This is where the mayor-appointed Public Use Zone Committee, comprised of Trustees Peter Bee (chair), Peter Negri and Gerard Lundquist, comes in - members, after meeting with various planners and consultants, will present an overview to the public.

A public hearing is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 8. According to Bee, the final report that the committee received from planning consultants, Buckhurst, Fish and Jacquemart, Inc. (BFJ) has "few changes" when compared to previous reports. Bee also noted that, if necessary, additional hearings could take place for more public comment. "The Public Use Zone Committee is anxious to bring their work to a close and ultimately propose a recommendation to the full board," Bee said.

Suozzi said, as he has both publicly and privately in the past, that he would not pursue the rezoning issue if the village determined zoning that was consistent with Garden City's needs and not his.

To help them make a recommendation to the full board of trustees, the committee retained special counsels John Kiernan and Vincent Pizzulli, Jr. as well as planning consultant Frank Fish, a BFJ principal.

Ultimately, when considering goals and working assumptions, Fish considered accommodating existing conditions where possible, respecting existing neighborhoods, maximizing the use of the village's existing zoning tools, recognizing market conditions and looking at any environmental impacts.