New Hyde Park Village Board Approves New Parks Law

Members of the New Hyde Park Village Board met Tuesday night for a special public hearing at the to adopt a new local law governing the use of village’s parks by residents, their guests and some groups.

The law reads: “All parks, fields and playgrounds owned by the Village are for exclusive use of Village residents and their guests except that a non-resident may utilize a park as a member of an organized activity sponsored or sanctioned by the Board of Trustees.”

One New Hyde Park resident asked how many guests can be brought to the parks and how the village will keep track of who is using the areas. 

While Mayor Daniel Petruccio recognized that there is a difference between allowing one guest opposed to 15 guests he said that “to put a number on it would be problematic.”

A large number of youths which residents say are not village residents play basketball and handball, ride bikes and motorized scooters and bring their dogs to Memorial Park.

“One of the things that I know is that the school district, if a group appears to be larger than [a reasonable amount] then they would require a permit,” Deputy Mayor Robert Lofaro said.

The same New Hyde Park resident suggested using leisure passes like other parks have, but Mayor Petruccio said that “even if you have leisure passes, you would either have to check everybody’s pass upon entering or no one’s; you can’t selectively ask some people for a leisure pass, so for us, we thought this was the closest we’d come to [that route].”

Lofaro continued by saying “we’re trying to put at least a code in place and with [new parks commissioner] Rich Pallisco, he’s going to be looking at how to address this. I can’t say that we’ll have every answer at every time that there will be non-residents using our facility without a resident as their guest, but this is a step in the right direction.”