Martins Withdraws Kings Point Park Land Swap Bill

State Sen. Jack Martins has withdrawn a bill that would have allowed the Village of Kings Point to swap 2.48 acres of Kings Point Park for 5.76 acres owned by the United Mashadi Jewish Community of America, a move that residents and activists who fought the proposal are calling a significant victory.

The withdrawal follows a Feb. 19 state Supreme Court judgment that annulled the conclusions of Kings Point’s environmental review of the parkland and called on the village to withdraw its request for Martins to pass the legislation. The court’s ruling gave the grassroots opposition a legal foothold to match what had already been months of sustained public pressure.

Denise Paredes, who works for Martins’ press office, said constituents who called the office first flagged the situation. Martins then reached out directly to Kings Point, who confirmed the judgment.

“The senator is only pursuing this at the village’s request,” Paredes said.

The village’s formal letter withdrawing the proposal did not reach Martins until Tuesday, March 10. Village Attorney Stephen Limmer acknowledged the delay, explaining that Mayor Kouros Torkan was on vacation. The letter, signed by Torkan, cited “certain concerns being raised by Village residents, along with requests for further environmental review” as the reasons for pulling the proposal.

The door has not been shut permanently. The letter notes that “upon further assessment and SEQRA evaluations, the Village may decide to make a new proposal for the alienation of that parkland.” That language will likely keep advocates on alert.

The backstory behind this fight stretches back to decisions made when the Village of Great Neck approved construction of a center for the United Mashadi Jewish Community of America abutting Kings Point Park. That approval came with variances allowing fewer parking spaces than village code required, on the condition that the center operate a shuttle bus from a separate parking lot. Once construction began, the Village of Kings Point proposed the land swap with the Mashadi community, with the intention of using the 2.48 acres of parkland to build a larger parking lot and private facilities. The Great Neck Park District would then lease the 5.76 Mashadi-owned acres, along with just under 8 acres of adjoining village land, for 40 years.

Critics of the swap argued that the deal would permanently shrink a public park to solve a parking problem that was, at its root, created by the variances granted during the center’s original approval. Turning public green space into private infrastructure struck many residents as a fundamentally bad bargain.

That opposition found an organized home in Save Kings Point Park, a local activist group whose Facebook community has grown to nearly 900 members. For months, the group has pushed residents to show up at Village of Kings Point board of trustees meetings, Village of Great Neck board meetings, and Great Neck Park District Board of Commissioners sessions. They kept the issue visible and made it politically uncomfortable to move the bill forward.

The pressure campaign worked, at least for now. The combination of community organizing and a court ruling ordering a fresh environmental review made it impossible to proceed without significant legal exposure and public backlash.

For residents of the Great Neck peninsula who use Kings Point Park, the withdrawal is welcome news. Public parkland is a finite resource on Long Island, and once acreage is converted to private use, it almost never comes back. The procedural maneuvering around the environmental review process, and the delay in formally notifying Martins while the mayor was on vacation, underscores how these deals can move quietly until an organized community decides to pay attention.

The village’s own letter leaves open the possibility of a revised proposal down the road. Residents who have been following this fight closely know that a withdrawal is not a permanent closure. If Kings Point pursues a new proposal, it will face a more organized and informed opposition than it did the first time around. The activists who built Save Kings Point Park are not likely to stand down. They will be watching the next planning meeting, and the one after that.