Peachtree Inc., a Where?-based construction company is seeking a permit from the Town of North Hempstead to do subdivision work on a lot at 16 Donaldson Place in Roslyn Heights. Bruce W. Migatz, the company's attorney, said the land in question consists of one home and "two irregularly shaped lots, with one lot having insufficient plot area."

More specifically, one of the lots does not conform to TONH building codes. According to Roslyn Heights resident Linda Gregorski Green, who closely studies construction work in the village, this particular lot falls slightly short of the 5,000 square footage needed for a legal lot. "Everyone wants strict enforcement of the zoning," she said, in reference to opposition that has sprung up in Roslyn Heights to Peachtree's plans.

Mrs. Green also maintains that contractors are buying properties throughout Roslyn Heights "first" and then seeking variances afterwards. Apparently, such companies are confident they can gain variances for subdivision and other construction even if they aren't sure in advance if their lots live up to TONH zoning codes.

The Jan. 13 hearing in front of the TONH Board of Zoning Appeals was well-attended by homeowners in the Donaldson Place area of the Heights. The BZA has not made a decision on the application, but in all likelihood will do so by the time of its Jan. 27 meeting.

Donaldson Place is a dead end street. Its residents, according to Mrs. Green, live in a "self-contained little neighborhood." Those same homeowners have come together to mount a petition drive against the subdivision plans.

The petitions merely state the neighborhood's opposition to the subdivision of the lot in question. According to Lucy Brown, a resident of Donaldson Place, 28 of the 35 homeowners in the area signed the petition. "Residents want to send a message that the town lives up to its own zoning codes," Mrs. Green said.

Earlier this month, the TONH council approved a plan to have 68 homes, mostly in the Elm Street section of Roslyn Heights designated an historic district. The impetus for creating such a district came after several homes in that area had been subdivided by outside contractors.

When the Ellenhoff house in Roslyn Heights was threatened with the same fate, two local residents, Kathy D'Amato Smith and Nancy Shores, began a grassroots campaign to obtain historic district status for Elm Street, a process that reached its successful conclusion at a Jan. 5 TONH council meeting.

Most homeowners in the new historic district approved of the plan, but there was some opposition. Tom Seligman, the former president of the Roslyn Heights Civic Association was part of the opposition. All that is needed, Mr. Seligman said at the meeting and at other forums, is for the TONH to "fully and vigorously" enforce all of the existing zoning laws and building codes.

Mr. Seligman also claimed that, over the years, he had seen "violation after violation" of the existing codes. His opposition, he added, was based on the desire to preserve the "wider community" of Roslyn Heights.

Mrs. Green, too, worried that the new historic district might be too exclusionary. Either way, issues such as enforcing existing zoning laws and the subdivision of lots with old homes, which have been cited by both supporters and opponents of the historic district, have come up again in one of our area's oldest residential neighborhoods.