At its December 16 meeting, the Village of Roslyn board of trustees approved changes to the Forest City Daly housing facility, Bryant Landing, slated for construction in downtown Roslyn.

Initially, the village's various boards, including the BOT, the Planning Board, and the Historic District Board all approved a plan that called for Forest City to construct one large building for senior residents, plus an office building and a third building that contained 90 units for assisted senior living. In all, there were 250 units in the original plan.

The changes approved by the BOT will result in two separate buildings, one of them containing 160 units for independent senior living and 50 units for seniors 55 years or older. And so, the new facility will have 210 units. The changes were approved after the BOT conducted one of its longest meetings in recent memory. While Forest City received the changes it sought, the village also got some concessions from the developer, including impact fees and parkland contributions.

Michael Daly, president of Forest City, said groundbreaking would begin as soon as his company receives its official construction permits. Whenever construction work begins, the building of Roslyn's first waterfront access park will be the first order of business. Forest City personnel estimate that it take 24 months to complete the entire project, which in addition to the housing facilities, will include a four-acre park, natural springs, and three freshwater ponds.

Members of both the Hempstead Harbor Protection Committee and the Village of Roslyn Harbor's board of trustees have criticized the changes to the original proposal.

In fact, the Roslyn Harbor board of trustees recently cautioned the Village of Roslyn against approving the changes, which they claim threatens to choke one of the main thoroughfares used by motorists from the surrounding area.

Roslyn Harbor officials note that Bryant Landing's only access to neighboring villages is through a narrow street that meets Bryant Avenue. That avenue is the only road that threads its way through Roslyn Harbor and is used also to reach neighboring communities, notably Glenwood Landing, Glen Head and Sea Cliff. Village officials also claim that peak southbound morning traffic is often backed up all the way to the Swan Club at the corner of Scudders Lane in Glenwood Landing and the entire length of the eastern spur of Bryant Avenue almost as far as Glen Head.

Those same officials contend that approval of Bryant Landing is based on misleading information supplied by the developer about the volume of traffic the development will generate and about vague plans to construct alternate access roads.

They also note that the proposed housing project is to be located just north of the viaduct that crosses Roslyn and is part of Northern Boulevard (Route 25A). The Roslyn exit ramp serves motorists destined for Roslyn Harbor and adjacent villages.

"If the project is allowed to go forward, it will make it nearly impossible for commuters and other motorists to reach the Roslyn overpass or to exit from it," said Mayor Gerson Strassberg of Roslyn Harbor. "I shudder to think what might happen to those senior residents in the event of a fire or other disaster; there is no way for the fire engines and other emergency vehicles to reach them as they come from all directions to enter Skillman Avenue, the narrow street they must turn into from Bryant Avenue."

Mayor Strassberg also alluded to plans, not yet approved by the Village of Roslyn, to build additional housing just south of the viaduct and adjacent to the proposed project. This second development would also be accessible solely through Skillman Avenue. He described such plans as "a disaster waiting to happen."

Roslyn Harbor officials differ sharply with the traffic projections offered by the engineers for Forest City Daly. The developer's projection indicated that the project now awaiting final approval would generate only 17 vehicle trips in the morning and 22 in the evening.

"The projection can't possibly include the volume of delivery and other service trips that a housing complex of this size obviously generates," Mayor Strassberg contended. "I think our friends in Roslyn are relying on self-serving estimates provided by the developer, which fall well short of reality," Mayor Strassberg said.

Public hearings on the proposed changes also focused on traffic volume, with trustees from the Village of Roslyn expressing similar concerns.

At a Dec. 2 meeting held at the Bryant Library, Roslyn BOT members noted that some residents would be only 55 years old. Many of them would still be driving to day jobs, creating, in the process, more traffic than what might ordinarily come from a senior housing facility.

During that same meeting, Forest City Daly officials said that they didn't anticipate more traffic than what the original plan projected. An engineer for Forest City estimated that Bryant Landing would see 15-20 visits a day and 30-40 visits a day during certain holiday seasons. He even claimed that based upon growth projections for the area, there would, in the coming years, be "a little bit less" traffic under the new plan. The engineer also suggested some roadway adjustments in the village, such as modifying traffic signal lights and adding some left turn signal lanes.

At earlier meetings, Forest City officials have said that the alterations to the original plan would decrease the square footage of Bryant Landing by 1,000 ft. Michael Daly has said that such changes would decrease the environmental impact on the downtown area, namely a lessening of the traffic flow from the facility.