Last Thursday, the Village of Roslyn Planning Board voted unanimously to accept the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Forest City Daly senior housing development.

Forest City Daly, a Manhattan-based developer, hopes to build senior housing units on an 11-acre site off Skillman Street in downtown Roslyn.

Copies of the approved statement are available at both the Bryant Library and the Roslyn Village Hall. The village will accept written public comments on the proposed development at the Village Hall, 1200 Old Northern Blvd., until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 26.

The vote took place after only a few, brief comments on the statement by Planning Board members. One member, Susan Shaw, noted that all pertinent questions regarding the plan had been raised by both board members and the public and that Forest City personnel had given satisfactory responses to those inquiries.

The next step for the project will be Site Plan Review hearings. No date has been set for the first hearings.

In recent weeks and months, as several public hearings were held on the issue, both Planning Board members and local residents have expressed concern over the size of the proposed project.

Planning Board member Guy Frost, for instance, noted the "height, massiveness and scale" of the development. At another meeting, Ms. Shaw expressed her opposition to the size of the administrative building, which had been set at 10,000 sq. ft. What was originally conceived as a small building now looked like "corporate headquarters" to Ms. Shaw.

Such complaints had their effect on Forest City Daly planners. The administrative building was reduced to 4,000 sq. ft. In addition, buildings that were scheduled to be three stories high were redrawn to be two stories in height. According to Michael Daly, president of Forest City Daly, the company has shortened the projected size of all three wings of the Dependent Living building. The Assisted Living building was reduced in planned size to just one story. In all, the entire size of the building project was reduced slightly from 286,000 sq. ft. to 270,000 sq. ft.

Local residents have complained about both the size and the possible traffic problems the housing development might cause. One resident called the plan the "biggest thing in Roslyn since Stop & Shop." Last summer, an organization called the Coalition for the Preservation of Historic Roslyn was formed to oppose the development. Still, what opposition that has existed has been nothing like the grass roots movements that characterized the Stop & Shop debate. All throughout this debate, for instance, Village of Roslyn Board of Trustee members have noted that the land space in question was zoned with senior housing development in mind.