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OCTOBER 22, 2020 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Corona, Crime, and a Sense of Community
TJH Speaks with Cedarhurst Mayor Ben Weinstock BY SUSAN SCHWAMM Mayor Weinstock, how many years have you been mayor of the Village of Cedarhurst? I have been involved with the Village of Cedarhurst for many decades. It began when I served as Deputy Village Attorney from 1989 through 1994. Then I became a Trustee in 1994 and was promoted to Deputy Mayor in 2003. When Mayor Parise passed away in February 2015, I became acting Mayor, and then was elected Mayor in 2015, and re-elected in 2019. All in all, I have been involved with our Village government for more than 30 years. Over three decades. How many residents are there in Cedarhurst? About 7,000. You’re an attorney. What type of law do you practice? Primarily, real estate law. How has your experience with real estate law helped you in your role in the Village? I’ve been very involved with the Village’s zoning, land use and development concepts. There is a very much-needed type of housing that doesn’t presently exist in the Village. Many of our homeowners are middle-aged couples whose elderly parents live in Brooklyn, or in Queens, or in the Bronx. Every time Mom has a pain or Dad’s not feeling well, the children run back home to take care of things. We would like to develop some housing in the Village that will accommodate these seniors so that they can downsize and be closer to their children and grandchildren. This is better for the parents and better for the as well . Single family homes are being built and re-built all over Cedarhurst. But if you look up and down Cedarhurst Avenue or Washington Avenue, it’s full of apartment houses. While we have many rental apartments and coops, there is a need for two types of housing that we don’t presently have. We need high-quality, concierge-type facilities like the Regency, where we can accommodate senior
citizens who no longer need a five-bedroom home. Additionally, I would love to see new two-bedroom rental apartments for young couples just starting out, so they can get comfortable in the community and then move into a larger home when they outgrow the apartment. We’re looking into developing transit-oriented residences near the train station, making sure that we have plenty of on-site parking so we don’t create an additional parking problem. What is the Village doing to alleviate the traffic problems in Cedarhurst? The population of the Village has exploded. Ten years ago, our population was estimated at 6,200 people. After the census, we’ll see how many people have moved in since then, but it’s a lot. The volume of cars contributes to the traffic problem, but it’s not the only cause. Oftentimes, the behavior of the drivers exacerbates the problem. I once heard Ben Brafman speaking and he quipped, “You know, I represent a lot of really scary people, but they don’t scare me. You
know what scares me? Driving on Central Avenue on Thursday afternoon.” He said, “You see these young mothers in their big SUVs talking on the phone, making a U-turn, and giving the baby in the backseat a bottle at the same time.” Obviously, this is an exaggeration, but the painful truth is that inconsiderate drivers, double parking, illegal left turns and the “I have the right of way” attitude of too many drivers intensifies the problem. Some people are discourteous. They don’t have a sense of spatial awareness of where they are, or they simply don’t care. Instead of moving their car up half a block to an open parking spot, they’ll stop in middle of even a major street with a hundred cars behind them just because they need to get something from a certain store. I was on Washington Avenue on a Thursday in September planning the repaving project. The aggressiveness of many drivers and the disregard for traffic rules was astonishing. The number of cars making illegal left turns exiting the parking lot onto
