Mizumi wishes to expand onto contaminated land

From the Times Ledger:

The owner of Mizumi Sushi and Seafood Buffet joined his lawyer at Community Board 11’s April meeting to make the case for his application to physically expand his restaurant onto the adjacent lot.

The community board ultimately approved the application 27 to 9 despite a fair amount of opposition due to the specifics of the building site, which require extensive environmental remediation and traffic considerations.

In expanding and developing the site, tons of soil would be removed, contamination would be capped and the currently 7,000-square-foot restaurant would have a new footprint of about 15,000 square feet with a 7,200-square-foot second floor banquet room and service bar.

Property records indicate that Twin Deer Group LLC, as the property owner of Mizumi in Douglaston, recently purchased the adjacent property that was once home to a gas station and automotive service.

Ching Kuo Chiang, as the principal owner of Mizumi, is working with the city Office of Environmental Remediation to clean up the contaminated site, which had previously been walled off from contaminating the surrounding wetlands of Alley Pond Park.

Chiang’s application to CB11 was only for a zoning variance, because the contaminated parcel is currently zoned single-family residential. There are no developments to the west of the parcel on which Mizumi plans to expand, and it is surrounded by an environmentally protected area.

In the application, Chiang’s lawyer Josh Reinsmith said Mizumi, at 231-10 Northern Blvd., would be combined with the adjacent parcel to be a single commercial-zoned lot. The application is still subject to approval by the Department of Environmental Conservation. If combined, the lot would be just under 1.5 acres in size.

The Douglaston Zoning Committee recommended approval of the zoning variance. Committee chair Joseph Sollano said that the committee viewed the project as only benefiting the community.