The Village of Great Neck Plaza is now developing new, very stringent, restrictions for cranes used within the village. Two recent accidents initiated the push for such new legislation, a crane that toppled on March 9, and a crane that snapped electric wires on March 18.

For the second time in just over one week, a crane accident occurred at the construction site of the Mayfair Senior Living residence on Cuttermill Road in Great Neck Plaza. On Wednesday afternoon, March 18, a crane caught a LILCO wire, snapped the line, blew transformers, and caught fire.

According to Vigilant Fire Chief Andrew DeMartin, the first firefighter on the scene, the construction workers were moving a load from the front to the rear of the site, left a cable unhooked, and the cable swung and caught a LILCO wire, and the wire snapped. The wire fell to the adjacent Long Island Rail Road tracks. Both the ''load'' dropped by the crane and the railroad tracks caught fire.

In addition, Chief DeMartin reported that the fence behind the neighboring office building at 98 Cuttermill Road ''energized with high voltage.''

''It (the fence) was so bright that I first ignored the fire,'' said the Chief, ''I ran to keep people away from the fence, so no one would get electrocuted.''

Chief DeMartin said that the entire incident took about two hours and 20 minutes to be brought under control. In addition to electric service disruptions, westbound railroad service was shut down for one hour during the fire and eastbound service was slowed down. Thirty-five firefighters fought the blazes, assisted by Nassau County police.

Just the week before, a crane at this same construction site toppled across the road at the height of a rainstorm, cutting electric power and disrupting traffic for most of the day. Great Neck Plaza Mayor Bob Rosegarten had termed it ''an act of God that no one was injured.'' The toppled crane had missed homes by only a few feet.

Mayor Rosegarten and his board of trustees addressed the two accidents at the village's March 18 board meeting. It was decided that there will be no cranes used in Great Neck Plaza until ''very stringent restrictions'' are put into place. Village Public Works Commissioner Harry Perlman has begun researching such legislation and is investigating the two accidents.

Said Mayor Rosegarten, ''Our new restrictions will be even more stringent than those in New York City,'' the only other place that the Mayor is aware of having crane restrictions.