(The following statement was given to the Hempstead Town Board of Zoning Appeals by members of the Levittown Property Owners Association at the hearing regarding the proposed church on the North Village Green in Levittown.)

The Levittown Property Owners Association respectfully urged the board to deny the application of St. Thomas Malankara Orthodox Church for parking variances at North Village Green in Levittown, for the following reasons:

A community is naturally anchored by the area popularly known as downtown, an area which provides a variety of services for the residential quarters. When William Levitt was building our community, he was aware of the need for such an area which under normal conditions evolves over long periods of time and adjusts its growth in response to the demands made on it by the residents. Mr. Levitt could not turn back the clock to allow for such an organic process. He solved the problem in a brilliant way by scattering throughout his development areas which he called village greens and which had space and buildings suitable to provide such services as are furnished by downtown areas in older communities.

The business establishments contemplated for village greens were such as would not need to reach beyond their neighborhood in order to prosper. Mr. Levitt's vision is still reflected by their business occupancy which consists of laundromats, dry cleaning shops, pizzerias and other take-out restaurants, doctors' offices, veterinary offices, stationery stores, beauty parlors, day care centers, etc.

For establishments which must rely on patronage for areas larger than the immediate neighborhood, Mr. Levitt earmarked the tracts on either side of Hempstead Turnpike. By virtue of their selective appeal, churches belong to the roll call of such establishments.

It is true, of course, that churches can be built almost anywhere in Levittown, but if and only if their operation does not increase the street traffic to the point of being dangerous and thus intolerable, and furthermore if they do not need to rely on the parking lots provided to the tax paying business community by the Town of Hempstead. And in fact, every house of worship in Levittown is located on a thoroughfare which allows ready access to it, and accommodates its patrons with a parking lot owned and maintained by the congregation.

On both these crucial questions the plans proposed by the Malankara Church fail the test:

1. The traffic around the North Village Green has reached, as it has almost everywhere in the residential sections, the level of complete saturation, and in fact oversaturation in the summer months when the swimming pools, which are adjacent to the village greens and are serviced by the same town parking lots, are in daily use from morning till evening. The Malankara Church is not going to limit itself to one short service weekly, but will engage in a variety of social functions such as weddings, funeral services, instructional services and even nation-wide conventions as stated by the pastor himself. Even the present status of the site forbids a favorable review of such plans. Yet it is the nature of our society that institutions such as the applicant are dynamic and growing elements. In the longrun, the members of this or of any other church would confront difficulties created by a rash and unwise choice of location, difficulties which at present they feel they may ignore.

2. The application for a massive variance for off-street parking amounts to an application for a governmental subsidy afforded by the Town of Hempstead to a religious body, or to put it even more specifically, a request by a non-taxable corporation for the support by tax paying citizens of our community and of Hempstead Town. As such, its granting would clearly violate the principle of our democracy. If one church is allowed to impose this burden on the taxpayers of Levittown, what can prevent other churches from demanding reimbursement of the costs of their parking lot maintenance from the town tax revenue?

To sum up: to grant the variance would mean on one side to disregard the mandate imposed on zoning authorities by the Town Law of New York State which requires them to protect health, safety and welfare of the citizenry; and on the other to undermine one of the cherished safeguards of our constitution, that of the separation of church and state.