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Grand Island Town Board: Opponents of Light House Pointe aren't negotiating about project

by jmaloni

•Taken from the March 21 Dispatch

Tue, Mar 25th 2014 05:05 pm

by Larry Austin

Residents opposed to a rezoning request by developers of the Light House Pointe apartment complex at East River and Whitehaven roads said Monday they aren't going to engage in give-and-take on the issue.

Neighbors of the property spoke at Monday's Grand Island Town Board meeting, even though a previously scheduled public hearing on a rezoning of the parcel from R-2 to R-3, which would allow multifamily homes, was moved to April 21.

Joe LaLonde of East River Road told the Town Board that when residents who live within 200 feet of the property were invited to a meeting with the developer at Memorial Library, the developer asked for input about what they would like and not like to see in the development.

"About 20 minutes into that, I made a statement to my fellow residents, neighbors that what we needed to do was stop talking to the developer about what we might want if they might build something there, and we needed to spend our efforts deciding if we were going to turn our efforts toward talking to this group (the Town Board) about not having the rezoning in the first place," LaLonde said. "Because the rezoning is the only thing that's standing in the way of this developer putting in 414 apartments."

Resident Dean Santorio of Timberlink Drive told the board Monday that if another meeting takes place between residents and the developers, "I don't think we're going to that meeting with a give-or-take attitude."

"We're going there basically saying right off the bat we do not want it rezoned," Santorio said.

LaLonde said residents have garnered 800 signatures on a petition opposing the rezoning.

Local Law Intro No. 4 of 2014 would rezone a portion of the property from R-2, attached single-family residential, to R-3, multiple-family residential.

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