East Hills residents arrived en masse at the monthly Village Board of Trustees meeting last Monday. Almost 40 residents, representing many of the civic associations in East Hills, have, for the past few months, been protesting expansion plans of L'Endroit Restaurant on Glen Cove Road to accommodate an extra 275 people.

Loretta Gaswirth, a resident of the Red Ground area and an attorney, presented the residents' case and made the Board of Trustees aware of a grievous error in zoning that allowed L'Endroit to erect a parking lot on a residential lot and the Village of East Hills Planning Board to approve the expansion (despite the protests of seven civic associations in East Hills).

After heated discussions, Mayor Michael Koblenz and the Board of Trustees agreed to forward the concise package of information to the Planning Board. Apparently, the Planning Board already has this same information in piecemeal but the mayor hopes this brief, yet complete presentation of evidence may reopen the case and allow the Planning Board to reverse their decision which, as of this writing, has not been filed with the village office.

Also to come out of this meeting were plans to update zoning in the village code to include a mandatory "buffer zone" between commercial and residential areas and also a possible system of "checks and balances" for any building permits.

Residents feel very strongly that these and other updates need to be implemented as soon as possible to prohibit overexpansion and encroaching businesses into already-imposed upon residential sections.

Rosanne Frank