My Opinion is Tonight the Village Board will approve Hess rezoning in order to green light a proposed sale to BJS

In my opinion the RVC Village Board meet to approve the rezoning of the HESS property from residential to business as a formality in September. They heard a lot of reasons why this decision was bad for the residents of N. Oceanside Road. The residents told the board about all night delivery noise, noxious fumes and the further reduction in their property values.  A lady named Barbara  from 79 Oceanside Road whose property abuts the Hess station summed it up perfectly. She said " I know I don’t live in the better part of town like you (Motioning to the people on the Board), but I take good care of my property. My property values are down the real-estate says my property is worth next to nothing. Why don’t you leave the property the way it is.” The Mayor clearly said we welcome new business to the village but we will look out for the residents. Trustee Sepe said several times during the meeting how we can get things done. I believed he said the Village Boards mission statement was “How can we help you”. This cracks me up.  

The Lawyer for HESS was very eloquent. He said Hess was very happy that the board was friendlier than past boards. Hess was applying so they could make changes to their property in order to make it more uniform. Hess might reconfigure the property by rebuilding the Speedy building or tear down and replace the utility building at the back of the property. Lastly, he said they would have more room to get to the underground gasoline tanks, tank farm and make changes to meet NYSDEC standards. No one on the board question if Hess is currently meeting  the("ECL") article 17 and parts 612 through 614 of title 6 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York ("6 NYCRR") . No they did not ask any questions.

In my opinion, tonight the Board will approve tonight knowing the variance clears the way for the sale of the Hess station to the highest bidder. The Hess lawyer who requested the variance, in my opinion knew his employers intentions to sell the station because of all the actions the Hess corporation took prior to the September 9, 2013 Board meeting. The request for a variance was done to deliver the property unencumbered from known zoning issues to the new owner. THIS WAS THE ONLY REASON FOR THE REQUEST.  On March 4, 2013 the Hess Corporation announced that they were divesting all of their 1361 Gasoline stations according to the NYT. The Hess Corporation hired Goldman Sachs on July 2, 2013 to find a buyer for the 1361 gasoline stations according to Market News Service. Finally BJS Big box stores were interested to buy all the stations on December 4, 2013 according to the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Mayor you can say you knew nothing like other politicians about the pending sale of Hess to stores like BJS. Well ignorance is no excuse. By this single action you single handedly opened our village to development by Big Box stores. The same type of stores the previous Mayor Murray fought so hard to stop.

The continued granting of spot zoning variances to benefit business interest at the expense of shrinking residential districts needs to end now. The spot zoning does not benefit this Village by one additional tax dollar. Deputy Mayor Howard said this and she confirmed this with Mr. Shussheim the village comptroller at the September 9th meeting. Stop the madness.