New housing plan for Woodmere golf club could end zoning dispute, litigation

Owners of the Woodmere Club have pitched a new proposal to build homes and preserve open space as a compromise to end litigation over development on the golf site straddling the villages of Lawrence and Woodsburgh and part of Hempstead Town.

New Jersey-based developers Robert Weiss and Efrem Gerszberg plan to build housing on about 38% of the approximately 117-acre golf course property while setting aside 46.4 acres as open space for preservation. It would also include a 5-acre park and buffers and preserve the clubhouse. 

On the northern side of the property, the developers plan to build 160 units of age-restricted condominiums for residents 55 and older. On the southern side, they would build waterfront-facing single-family homes.

In prepared remarks for a presentation to the Village of Woodsburgh provided to Newsday, the developers said the new proposal is “an option that was brought to us by your political and community leaders, in the interest of open space, reduced traffic and shorter construction duration and an end to our ongoing litigation.”

“This plan would be a full settlement removing the $200 million exposure in our lawsuit,” the developers said June 17 in the prepared remarks for a presentation last week.

The property has been mired in litigation and controversy for years.

Town of Hempstead spokesman Brian Devine declined to comment on the new proposal, citing ongoing litigation.

On June 4, the town board approved hiring a consultant and an attorney to review a zoning variance application made by WG Woodmere LLC, one of the legal entities that owns the Woodmere property. 

Lawrence Mayor-elect Shlomo Nahmias, who said he attended a June 3 presentation on the project at Lawrence Middle School, said resolving this issue will be a priority after he is sworn in July 1. 

“There's little things that might need to be tweaked, but for the most part, people are receptive to it,” Nahmias said. “At the end of the day, it's the Town of Hempstead that has to make that decision. The majority of the land is in the Town of Hempstead.”

Woodsburgh Mayor Jacob Harman did not respond to requests for comment. 

The compromise of putting up age-restricted condos in one corner of the property instead of building new streets and infrastructure for 59 houses allowed under the existing zoning “sounds like it's a good deal because it's what the residents want to see instead of seeing many houses being put up,” Nahmias said. 

In 2016, Hempstead enacted a 180-day moratorium blocking building on the property in anticipation that a buyer would want to develop the property. The developer bought the golf course in 2017 with a goal of developing housing on the property, according to court records.

The town's moratorium was extended six times but ultimately ruled illegal in New York State court. The town then blocked a plan to build 280 homes on the property in 2020 by rezoning under a new designation called the Coastal Conservation District-Woodmere Club, which limited development to 59 homes while preserving 83 acres as open space, including the clubhouse and a nine-hole golf course.

The town and the villages share legal expenses to defend against lawsuits over the coastal conservation district, according to town records. In 2020, the town board adopted an agreement under which the town agreed to pay 70% of legal costs while the villages would each pay 15%, proportions set in relation to how much of the district is in each municipality. 

The latest lawsuit, filed last year in federal court, seeks to allow the developer to build on the property or for the municipalities to pay millions of dollars in damages. 

Over the past six years, the developer has filed eight lawsuits in state court in Nassau County and two federal lawsuits against governments and governmental agencies within Nassau, the Town of Hempstead, and Lawrence and Woodsburgh. Those suits have led to a mix of decisions, some favoring the developer, others the municipalities and some still active. 

A 2018 lawsuit succeeded in lifting the town's moratorium when a state judge ruled it unconstitutional. A state judge ruled in Woodsburgh's favor in a 2019 lawsuit that challenged the village's new plan. A judge also ruled against the developer in a lawsuit that sought to compel the county planning commission to hold a hearing on the developer's proposed subdivision map. In 2020, the developer sued the town and villages in federal court, alleging the municipalities had improperly thwarted their development plans. A federal judge ruled in favor of the municipalities and dismissed the case in 2022.

Last year, the developer sued the villages in federal court, alleging the villages were improperly preventing the developer from proceeding with its planned development. 

Lisa Ott, president and chief executive of the North Shore Land Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for conserving open space, said the new proposal would benefit the area.

“It's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a community to have the opportunity to create something that's so long-lasting and so environmentally significant,” Ott said. While the community wanted the entire property preserved, she said, “There is a balance between development and there are property rights.”

Ott said her organization, which owns and manages preserved land, had been in discussions with the developer about transforming the open space to maritime grassland that would help absorb water during coastal flooding.

Rena Saffra, a member of the Five Towns Civic Association who lives in the unincorporated part of Hempstead adjacent to the golf course, said the new proposal “is a step in the right direction.”

The preserved “contiguous open space … will continue to act as a sponge” in a coastal area where “the flooding is terrible,” she said.

If built, she said the age-restricted condos are “not going to generate the type of traffic that we would get from single-family homes.”

The age-restricted housing also would respond to a demand in the community without having an impact on the schools, she said.

“A lot people are aging and they want to stay here or [are] people who live here and want their parents to move here.”