We are particularly disturbed and can no longer silently sit by while our communities are negatively impacted by a number of recent actions by city agencies that have circumvented the involvement of this board, our legislators and our community.The processes by which findings by a number of city agencies are being imposed upon our community with impunity and without regard for our views and recommendations are creating the potential for harmful consequences. The process has resulted in a collective discouragement, and we experience the anger of affected residents of the community.
Some examples are:
A high school for at-risk students has been imposed on us without notification or consultation, and without regard for the consequences, it may create on nearby schools and the residential community adjacent to the site.
The concealed plan by St. John’s University to place a six-story dormitory for about 485 students adjacent to one-family residential homes on Henley Road.
A major drug and alcohol detoxification center is being placed in the former St. Joseph’s Hospital without regard to nearby homes, schools and the community at large.
The rezoning of the Hillside Avenue Corridor component of the Jamaica Redevelopment Plan, designed to create a two-mile long wall of eight-story multi-unit houses is to be imposed upon an existing area of one and two-family homes.
Despite the overwhelming opposition and the submission of viable options by CB8 and the local community to the Department of Transportation, extreme changes in traffic patterns have been implement by the agency at two local elementary schools, P.S. 200 and P.S. 117, with anticipated harmful consequences.
Please understand our utter frustration with our inability to carry out our mandate as Community Board members and responsible community leaders. Our board hopes that such uncompromising acts do not reflect a course formulated by your office. We call upon you to review these patterns of insensitivity, and to meet with us at your earliest convenience in order to consider how our city agencies would be able to give greater weight to the views of our local Community Boards to assure them a more meaningful role in the process of governance.
Alvin Warshaviak
Chairman of CB 8
3 comments:
What are they complaining about? All this sounds ok in western Queens!
Send 'em to CB1, the community board from hell.
Community boards have no real power.
Their votes are advisory.....
a bunch of toy guns shooting blanks!
They were set up as a sham
to give community residents the illusion
that they have input into government.
Their district managers
make quite a hefty annual salary though.
Nice to land such a fat patronage job.
Where do I apply for the position ?
Just give me an NYC "green book" directory
(or whatever color it is these days)
with all the essential phone numbers etc.
and I don't need the community board for zilch!
I can place my own phone calls to the city agencies.
And since the district managers (I've been told)
make about $95,000 a year (plus the staff's salaries)
NYC could save a helluva lot of money
if we dumped the whole CB system tomorrow!
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