Over Objections About Parking, Community Board Approves Controversial Zoning Permit For Local Health Center

Community Board 15 gave the go-ahead Tuesday night to a controversial special zoning permit that allows an Emmons Avenue healthcare center to enlarge its property by adding an extra floor while also reducing the number of parking spaces.

Against the objections of some of its members as well as community stakeholders, the board voted 10-3, with one abstention, to approve the plan.

The proposal, first brought to the community board last month by the property’s owner STGG Realty, would allow the building at 3133 Emmons Avenue, near Coyle Street, to enlarge the second-floor space and add another story to the property. The owner also asked to be allowed to reduce the number of parking spaces in its garage by 12 spaces — from 44 to 32. Zoning laws would require the facility to have 78 spaces and some at the meeting worried that the increased capacity of the building, which is occupied by Prime Home Health Services, as well as the company’s intention to bring in additional employees, would further limit parking availably in the area.

“The board’s decision is very unfortunate because the parking over the last 10 years has been increasingly difficult. And this will only make it worse,” said Mike Freedman, president of the Miramar Yacht Club across the street from the health center. “They missed a very good opportunity to make more parking spaces available and they set a very bad precedent. And the residents and people in the area will regret it.”

Eric Palatnik, an attorney representing the property owner, brought with him a study of available parking in the area, which board members had requested at the previous meeting. The property owner had sent out engineers during the work day to see how many spaces were available within a quarter mile of the center.

The study found that at 8am, when the healthcare workers are showing up for work, there were 34 available spaces. That number increased to 100 spaces during the middle of the day, Palatnik said.

Palatnik also said the center had committed to clearing out there garage of cars that were renting spaces so that employees would no longer have to park in the street.

“Even though employees are not parking in the garage now, there’s still 100 spaces available during the middle of the day,” he said. “I don’t know how it is in the evening, when people come home from work, but the people who work here are gone by the evening.”

While some residents at the meeting disputed the study’s findings, saying the results didn’t comport with their experience, others argued there was a larger issue. Allowing the property owner to make such drastic changes could open up Sheepshead Bay’s waterfront district to to even greater development, they said.

“This is a change for all of Section G, which is Nostrand to Knapp,” said board member Maurice Kolodin. “This is not to accommodate one particular premise. This is for everybody. And this could be changed if a new tenant came in there or anywhere else.”

Palatnik countered by saying that developers were interested in building residential, not commercial property, on Emmons Avenue and the special permit would not apply to apartment buildings.

“There is no end run here,” said Palatnik. “This is about a business that has done well. It’s local and it wants to stay local.”

Ultimately, the majority of board members seemed swayed to vote in favor of the proposal out of an interest to keep the health center in the neighborhood.

“This is a local business, they’ve been there for many years and it’s a successful business. We want to keep them in the community,” said Al Smaldone, who voted in favor of the special permit.

The board later amended its recommendation to not allow a transfer of air rights in order to prevent future developers from exploiting the permit.