Woodmere Club development inches forward as Hempstead OKs restrictions

A settlement in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over a long-planned development on the site of the former Woodmere Club appears to be back on track after the Hempstead Town Board imposed restrictive covenants on the property.

The town board approved the resolution Tuesday after having tabled it at its Jan. 13 meeting without explanation.

On Monday, New Jersey-based developer Efrem Gerszberg said he and his partner Robert Weiss were focused on getting the final approvals for 155 age-restricted units on the property.

"With deed restrictions covering more than 70 acres, the Woodmere Club project will represent one of the largest open-space conservation efforts on Long Island in decades," Gerszberg said in a statement. The property straddles the Town of Hempstead and the villages of Lawrence and Woodsburgh. 

Gerszberg said they expect to open a sales office in the fall, with groundbreaking planned for early next year.

Last month, the town board approved rezoning the property subject to restrictive covenants that would limit many aspects of the site's development. The covenants were part of a deal to settle a $65 million lawsuit filed in 2023 over the site.

“This settlement is a home run for open space in the Town of Hempstead, and puts an end to needless and costly litigation, all while simultaneously securing community benefit funds for the surrounding areas," town spokesman Brian Devine said in a statement Thursday. 

Lawrence and Woodsburgh have approved the settlement, according to the villages' meeting minutes from last month. 

Speaking at the Dec. 11 Lawrence trustees meeting, Mayor Samuel Nahmias said if the village lost in court, the site could have been developed with more than 300 single-family homes. 

"I believe this deal picked the lesser of the damage," Nahmias said, according to the minutes. "And when you build these condos, older residents of the community have a place to go."

The development is planned for the Hempstead portion of the property, with open space preserved in Hempstead and the villages.

Covenant details

The covenants would allow the developer to build two main three-story residential buildings with a maximum height of 46 feet, though that would still require the project to receive a variance as the zoning limits buildings to 2½ stories and 30 feet. 

To enforce the age restrictions, at least one condo owner must be 55 or older, and at least one resident — if the condo is not owner-occupied — must be 55 or older.

The covenants also require underground parking, setbacks and landscaping. The development would also include a clubhouse, indoor pool, community room, gym, spa and other amenities, according to the covenants.

The town tried to thwart development on the site, formerly a golf course, by enacting a moratorium on building on the property in 2016 before the developers purchased it. A state judge ruled the moratorium was illegal.

The town and villages then created a zoning designation called “Coastal Conservation District — Woodmere Club,” which restricted development on the site to 59 homes — far fewer than the 280 homes they sought to build.

That zoning designation set aside the majority of the land as open space and allowed three clusters of housing within the area with lot sizes that would have permitted 59 single-family homes to be built.

 The condos would have a similarly small footprint on the overall property in a compromise that preserves open space.

'A collapse of inventory'

If the housing gets built, the units will enter a market with high demand and increasingly low inventory, said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel. 

"There's been a collapse of inventory over the year and that has forced pricing to surge," Miller said. "This is not unique to Long Island. The whole Northeast is devoid of adequate inventory. ... There just isn't enough."

Miller said that 55-and-older housing is a growing trend on Long Island as the traditional transplanting of retirees to Florida appears to have peaked. 

"I would expect that we're going to have more demand for 55-and-older [housing] in the future; that the demand is going to expand," Miller said.