The Village of Kings Point is proposing to construct a 10,000 square foot public works building on a 5.5-acre parcel on the southeast corner of Kings Point Road and Steamboat Road with a goal of completing the job by the end of 2009. A public meeting was held on Nov. 20 to inform the village's residents and the neighboring Village of Great Neck residents of the details of the plans.

While there seemed to be a consensus that a new building is needed to protect equipment from the elements, somewhere, several people raised questions about the fence that would skirt two sides of the property, water runoff, sewage impact, lighting and the placement of the building that would require the removal of some old growth trees.

Mayor Michael Kalnick began the meeting by noting that the design goals for the building were to make it blend into the neighborhood by maintaining the wooded buffer, nestling it into the existing sloped grade, enhancing it with generous landscape plantings and designing the building to have a residential feel in scale, colors and materials used. The exterior would match the color of village hall and would have a roof using the same weathered copper as village hall.

The building, estimated to cost $3.6 million would, according to the mayor, be "cost neutral" to the taxpayers because the village would sell off the two parcels where the old village hall stood and where the public works building is currently located. In addition, it is estimated that the return of the two lots to the tax roll would generate $24,000 annually for the village coffers.

He went on to add that the village could afford to wait to sell the lots when real estate values rise. Upon further questioning, he added that in a "worse case scenario," whereby the lots, appraised at a total of $3.6 million, went unsold, the additional tax to the average homeowner would be $100 yearly.

Michael Spector of The Spector Group, who designed the building, stated that the site plan and the building were designed to minimize the impact on the neighbors. The activities on site would be centered on the interior portions of the lot and the shielded lighting would also not intrude on the bordering residences.

The village's arborist and landscape architect, Richard Gibney, described the 5-foot fencing that would be on the property line adjacent to the homes on Crestwood. He said that small evergreens, which grow to a height of 8 feet, would be planted on the village property next to the fence. Mr. Gibney added that the growth pattern of the species to be planted is to grow into the fencing and eventually hide the fence itself. He also said that extensive landscaping will be installed and that temporary drip irrigation will be used to ensure that the plantings settle in well and that in five to seven years there would be complete screening.

The Village of Great Neck residents repeatedly asked the village board to reconsider the matter of the fence and to follow their own village code, which requires fences to be positioned so that plantings are on the neighbor's side of a fence. A question was also raised regarding the fact that the fence, as currently planned, does not encircle the entire property. The mayor said that the most southern border of the property, which is wooded, uneven and "rough" terrain was not deemed to need fencing, but "we could always totally fence it off." After much back and forth, the mayor agreed to take the matter of the fencing under advisement.

Other questions were raised about the Village of Great Neck sewer line that serves the area and whether proper controls and protections would be in place to avoid mixing contaminants from the building into the line. The engineer for the project, Kenneth Pritchard of Dvirkan Bartilucci, said that a "state-of-the art" separator is to be installed to prevent grit, oil and other contaminants from draining into the sewer line.

The plan calls for storm water to be recharged through the use of leeching pools. Further, the Department of Environmental Conservation has signed off on the placement of the building, which had to avoid a designated wetlands area on the parcel. The village also has a plan for erosion control and tree root protection during construction.

Some attendees expressed concern about large, specimen trees that fall within the footprint of the proposed building and would have to be felled. They asked about the feasibility of moving the building 30 feet to the east. The arborist, Mr. Gibney responded that in order to really protect a 62-inch caliber tree, one would need to avoid digging within the drip line of such a tree, a radius of at least 60 feet. He said it was not a simple matter of just moving the building 30 feet.

The project management firm is Kulka LLC.

Although a suggestion was made to build the facility on the old site, it was clear that the board was not keen for that idea.

One left the meeting with the contradictory notions of Robert Frost's famous poem Mending Wall in mind, namely ... "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" and "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence" and "Good fences make good neighbors."