An area including 68 homes in Roslyn Heights is currently under review by the Town of North Hempstead for historic district status. The homes are on Elm and Willow Streets and also include the north side of Garden Street. The TONH Landmark Commission has already approved the historic district status and passed the issue on to the town board which will hold hearings on the matter early next year.

Some residents have voiced reservations to the plan, based on the question of open meetings, qualifications for historic home status, and whether the proposed district is too exclusive.

Kathy D'Amato Smith and Nancy Shores are the two Roslyn Heights residents who have spearheaded the drive for an historic district in the village. As a rationale for the historic district idea, they both cited two earlier, independent studies of Roslyn Heights neighborhoods that were commissioned by the Town of North Hempstead.

Those studies both concluded that many of the homes in the Elm and Willow Street neighborhoods fit a "certain era" and as such, should be preserved. The studies did not recommend historic district status, but this is the path Ms. D'Amato Smith, Ms. Shores and their allies are taking.

The purpose of creating an historic district is to prevent older homes in the Heights from being destroyed. The fact that two such homes have already been torn down and others have been threatened with the same fate has caused both Ms. D'Amato Smith and Ms. Shores to explore the historic district option.

"Much of Roslyn Heights is non-conforming," Ms. D'Amato Smith said. "It has a lot of modern homes." She added that any charges of elitism are incorrect. Any historic district, Ms. D'Amato Smith said, is not intended to be exclusive. It is being created for practical reasons, and is in conformity with suggestions made in prior studies of the neighborhood.

Both ladies claim that other Roslyn Heights homeowners have called and asked to join the list. Ms. Shores said they will work "with anyone in the community" who is seeking the same status, but she added that homes in an historic district have to be in a continuous line, they can't jump from one home to another in a different location.

Residents skeptical about the plan have complained about the lack of open meetings and "open discussion" among Roslyn Heights residents on the matter. Lack of open discussion, according to former Roslyn Heights Civic Association president Tom Seligman, might "polarize people" in the community who would otherwise be glad to agree to disagree on this or other issues.

However, both Ms. D'Amato Smith and Ms. Shores claim that meetings already held have been well publicized and in one case, well-attended. When both ladies attempted to rescue an older home threatened by demolition, they left fliers at numerous homes in Roslyn Heights explaining the situation.

According to Ms. D'Amato Smith, the only residents who responded were those living in the 68 houses currently on the historic district application. Such meetings have been advertised in both the Roslyn News and Newsday.

Proponents of the historic district have been holding meetings for a year and a half. A November 1997 meeting at the community center in The Heights drew between 50 and 75 people, including local politicians and Dr. George Williams, a longtime member of the Roslyn Landmark Society.

In order to qualify for historic district status, a "great majority" of the homes in the area must be 50 years or older. According to Ms. Shores, most of the homes on the list were built in the late 19th and early 20th century. A smaller number of the homes were constructed during the "Levitt period" of the late 1940's, when suburban tracts were beginning to spring up all over Long Island.

Summing it up, Ms. Shores reiterated that her group sees the whole process as a zoning issue. Having part of Roslyn Heights in an historic district will save the village's oldest homes from destruction. Having a home in such a district does not prevent exterior renovation. Such renovations only have to match the architecture of the time period in which the house was first built.

Ms. Shores added that her interest in neighborhood preservation is personal. She is a native of Roslyn Heights, who left and then moved back to the village. Both ladies strongly feel that 19th century homes are part of the attractiveness of the village, something that will entice younger couples to move there in the future.