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North Hempstead board approves Sunoco special‑use permit at 993 Willis with conditions on hours, parking and dumpsters
Summary
After a lengthy public hearing, the Town of North Hempstead Town Board approved a special‑use permit for 993 Willis Avenue (Sunoco) with added conditions that require a specific parking layout, relocation or screening of dumpsters, a solid screening fence along the west property line, and a no‑left‑turn restriction onto Park Lane Drive.
The Town of North Hempstead Town Board on Monday approved a special‑use permit for 993 Willis Avenue — the Sunoco gasoline station — after neighborhood residents and the Albertson Civic Association raised concerns about parking, trash, traffic and hours of operation.
Kevin O’Brien, attorney for the applicant, described the proposal as a modest interior reconfiguration that would remove one repair bay to expand the convenience‑store area and said there would be no change to existing underground fuel storage or the pumps. “It’s a somewhat de minimis application,” O’Brien said during his presentation.
Neighbors told the board they have long experienced spillover parking, delivery trucks that impede circulation, dumpsters parked on site in ways that reduce the number of available customer spaces, outdoor storage of tires and rodents on adjacent properties. Ed Rakowski, president of the Albertson Civic Association, asked that hours of operation be memorialized and enforceable so a future owner could not convert the site into a 24‑hour operation: “That would not be sufficient from our point of view,” he said, urging that any limits be recorded or otherwise enforceable.
Planning staff told the board that the site has a Board of Zoning Appeals approval for nine parking spaces (BZA Appeal #18817) and that the proposed interior changes did not trigger a new parking calculation. Staff also confirmed the applicant offered hours of operation of 5:00 a.m. to midnight and clarified that condition will be enforceable: “If they are violating that section of the code, you can call 311 and inspections will be conducted,” a planning official said.
After public testimony and several rounds of questions about landscaping, the location and enclosure of dumpsters, and the handicap parking layout, planning staff read five additional conditions to be added to the resolution. Those added conditions require: adherence to the 2016 approved parking layout (or planning review for any deviation); continued availability of the nine BZA‑approved spaces and a prohibition on using them for long‑term vehicle storage; relocation or full screening of dumpsters consistent with town code; installation and maintenance of a solid screening fence along the west property line to block headlight glare; and installation of a no‑left‑turn control at the Park Lane Drive exit with curb modifications as approved by the Commissioner of Planning.
The board voted to add the conditions and then adopted the resolution approving the permit as amended. The motion to add amendments and the final adoption were carried on roll call with members voting Aye.
What happens next: the applicant must comply with the planning conditions stated in the resolution and work with planning staff on final site details before building permits are issued. Planning staff also noted that code enforcement remedies are available if conditions are violated.
