The Village of Roslyn Board of Trustees has enacted a new building moratorium for the village while attorneys reargue the case for its original Master Plan and Zoning Code.

The new moratorium came into place after a New York State Appellate Court, last month, voided a section of the Master Plan having to do with a certain rezoning law. The court ruled that the section was put into effect by the village without a proper recommendation by the Nassau County Planning Commission.

The moratorium will be in effect for six months. In the meantime, the village will not only reargue the case before the courts, they will also hold public hearings on the rezoning law, update the Environmental Impact Statement, and finally, send all the information to the planning commission for final approval. The village anticipates no problems in getting the original provisions of the rezoning law in question back into the Master Plan.

Attorneys for LCS Inc., Syosset, brought the rezoning suit before the court which then issued its own surprise ruling. According to Village Attorney John Spellman, LCS officials claim they still want to build in Roslyn. Still, Mr. Spellman doubted the sincerity of that claim, noting that LCS has entered into a contract of sales with Phillips International, which handed over the site off Skillman Street to Phillips. Phillips hopes to build residential housing on the site where LCS once wanted to construct a Stop & Shop supermarket.

In 1997, when the village was writing the rezoning law, it made amendments after the law had been sent to the planning commission for approval. The village claimed such amendments were "nonsubstantive," but the appellate court ruled they should have been sent to the commission before, rather than after, the law went into effect. More specifically, the village enacted its new zoning law two weeks earlier than it should have.

Last summer when the ruling was handed down, Mr. Spellman said that the court's decision was not a challenge to either the rezoning law or the entire Master Plan. The village hopes to readopt the law to where the situation "can't be challenged" by LCS or anyone else. Once the procedure is completed, the village, Mr. Spellman added, should end up "back where we were" concerning all elements of the Master Plan.