Keeping Kings Point Park green focus of rally against parking lot

Three days before Earth Day, about 200 residents gathered at Kings Point Park on Sunday to protest the potential that 2.48 acres of parkland could be turned into a parking lot.

Last year, Assemb. Daniel Norber (R-Great Neck) and State Sen. Jack Martins (R-Old Westbury) proposed bills to transform the section of the 175-acre park abutting the United Mashadi Jewish Community of America's community center into parking spaces. Martins' bill passed, but Norber's bill did not make it to the floor before the legislative session ended in June.

Community members who closely follow local politics and attended the rally said they suspect the Village of Kings Point, which leases the 175-acre park to the Great Neck Park District, is getting ready to make another effort to take control of the 2.48 acres.

The rally was followed by a nature walk through the park.

"I am a proponent of wildlife and nature, the fauna, the floral," Kathy Crowley, a Great Neck resident for about 50 years, said in an interview Sunday at the rally. "That they want to destroy Kings Point Park is unfathomable to me."

Carol Frank, 79, of Great Neck, also at the rally, said the section of the park the district had considered for the parking lot, on Steamboat Road, was "key" because it's the "entrance to this side of the park."

"People just love the solitude of it, to be able to come here to walk," Frank said. "We have people in apartment buildings who don't have access to a backyard. It's extremely popular."

Frank said the park, much of which is protected wetlands, also keeps the surrounding neighborhood from flooding.

"We have communities of trees and all kinds of vegetation, that's also part of the watershed and also protects the neighborhood," Frank said.

In September, a group of residents sued the village of Kings Point, the village's board of trustees, the park district and the Mashadi organization in state Supreme Court to prevent constructing the parking lot in the future. The village board's decision was "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law" in granting environmental approval, the lawsuit stated.

Then, on Oct. 22, the respondents' attorneys submitted an offer of judgment stating the village would withdraw its proposed request for the parking lot to Norber and Martins. But residents believe the village will make another request soon after an environmental review is complete.

Robert Lincoln, 80, a former park district commissioner who attended Sunday's rally, said in an interview that "politicians need to see numbers."

"This is partly a concern about nature, and environment and watershed all that," Lincoln said, as protesters sang Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" in the background. "It's also about recreation programs that would be affected in a negative way. And we're trying to stop it."