From the Queens Gazette:Zoning Committee Chair John Carusone said new restrictions on curb cuts on properties less than 40 feet wide would impact parking and restrict development, especially in cases of conversions of two-family into three-family homes.
A slew of new regulations couched inside the streetscape text amendment infuriated Board Member Gerald Caliendo. An architect by profession, Caliendo said, “I am completely disgusted with the amount of [zoning] changes [the DCP] are bombarding us.” Echoing Carusone, also an architect by profession, Caliendo said people “won’t be able to build”.
In parts of Queens within Community Boards 1 and 2, existing buildings whose owners want to provide new parking spaces and construct curb cuts to access parking on wide streets are allowed to apply for authorization. The proposed text amendment would give DCP the power to review the effect of a new curb cut on the character of the streetscape.
Cracking down on “parking pads”, the proposal would also prohibit parking in front of all detached buildings on lots less than 35 feet wide and would permit new curb cuts only if they access a driveway located within a side yard that is at least eight feet wide.
For required parking in conversions, the text amendment proposes R3 and R4 units be required to provide an off-street parking space in addition to any existing parking spaces on the lot.
That's funny, most Queens taxpayers I speak with are more concerned about having their streetscape remain intact and not looking like a third world slum rather than milking their cash cow until it can't stand up anymore. This is why having real estate people on your community board is generally a bad idea. However, if you reside within the Community Board from Hell, then you probably have been appointed by a Vallone, or by the borough president with the blessing of a Vallone.
Photo from Washington Post
20 comments:
Some spaces weren't meant to be built on!
Let's not forget board members are too look out for the community best interests not their own as architects!
Why doesnt someone post this on Astorians.com for comment?
And then stay on baiting them until you get tossed off.
You would have done your civic duty for the year.
Why doesnt someone post this on Astorians.com for comment?
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Only if you can do this in one of the hooka bars they always are gushing about and then, only if you are finished talking to that nice Nigerian man.
(ma, Astoria is soooo coool! They dont't have this stuff in Kansas City!)
No wonder the water is always brown in Astoria. That happens when you have lots of construction.
A freaking laughing stock they are.
Everyone believes that those on our community board are either connected, keep their mouth shut, or are clueless to the point of being harmless.
They believe outspoken advocates for the community get marginallized and never reappointed (if they don't get frustrated and quit first)
you gotta remember that the community boards are safe appointees from people dependent upon the real estate industry for honest graft.
Astoria, like their sibling in the same community board, Dutch Kills, is doomed.
But so are we, for like a infected cell with a virus, as things fester in that little world, sooner or later things burst and the rest of us have to deal with a problem much larger.
Every architect, developer, that festers there will be in your backyard tomorrow.
Every unneeded human warehouse that goes up adds to the infrastruture that you dear reader (not Vallone's barbeque buddies) will forever pay for.
How can Vallone submit a rezoning for a community and appoint people to a community board if his family is involved in representing developers or have extensive (as rumor has it) real estate interests of their own?
Shouldn't he recuse himself from this process?
His office (I heard) is badgering every group in the community to go along with that rezoning.
That's funny, most Queens taxpayers I speak with are more concerned about having their streetscape remain intact and not looking like a third world slum rather than milking their cash cow until it can't stand up anymore.
SO WHY DO WE NEVER HEAR ABOUT THIS IN ASTORIA? ALL WE HEAR ARE DEVELOP! DEVELOP! DEVELOP!
Someone should look into the $900,000+ (yes you read that right) in discretionary funds (I mean taxpayer's money) that Vallone got in 2009 and how he spent it.
Can someone tell me is it true that plans are afoot to move the Astoria Houses and Queensbridge Houses for new waterfront development?
Rumors are circulating.
Some spaces weren't meant to be built on!
Couldn't have said it better myself!
you gotta remember that the community boards are safe appointees from people dependent upon the real estate industry for honest graft.
even bad community boards have good people.
Plus there are all the homeowners who just go ahead and pave over the front yard for car parking without even making mention to any agency that they're doing it. Some even have had the nerve to paint their curbs yellow.
When I bought my house fifteen years ago, none of the nine houses on my block had paved-over front yards. Today, my house is one of only 3 left with its original garden out front.
And while I'm at it, I'll add that when I first moved into this location none of the houses had bars on the front windows. But nearly everyone who bought a house on this block since then has put up window bars that are visible from the street - even though no house around here has ever been broken into for as far back as anyone can remember.
It irks the hell out of me the way so many recent home buyers have made this part of the community look like the unsafe slum it isn't.
That you have admitted there is a problem, now that is the first step.
Now dont blame it on the mayor, the governor, the president, the tri-lateral commission, the Port Authority, the Public Service Commission.
Blame it on your elected officials and community board.
For until you do, and get vocal about it with attending community board meetings, writing letters, you are just wasting your time.
What do you have to lose - but your chains?
PS Keeping posting here and invite everyone you know to do so also.
The folks who do a pave-over think people like Nancy and I are fools for keeping a front yard with flowers growing in it. What a waste! They have never lived in a house with a garden and they don't intend to start now either.
As for Rikers-izing you home, rendering it impossible to escape in the event of a fire. I think the psychology goes like this: burglars always skip the houses with bars and go after the unbarred houses. So its the last unbarred house on the block that will always be broken into. I don't want to be that last unbarred house.
Anonymous 17: If I thought it would do any good, I would do all you suggest. However, the numbers are overwhelming. For every resident home owner in Queens who cares, there's 20 or 30 absentee landlords who have done an illegal conversion and paved over whatever they can. The tenants trash, the landlord's neglect, graffiti, etc. are not going to be legislated away. Queens is getting a lot uglier as far down the road as I can see.
Anonymous 17: If I thought it would do any good, I would do all you suggest. However, the numbers are overwhelming. For every resident home owner in Queens who cares, there's 20 or 30 absentee landlords who have done an illegal conversion and paved over whatever they can. The tenants trash, the landlord's neglect, graffiti, etc. are not going to be legislated away. Queens is getting a lot uglier as far down the road as I can see.
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It not Queens, but the whole country that is going to hell. It took a long time to get this way, and it will take a long time for it to change.
The only reason it got this way is because people kept their mouth shut. You keep your mouth closed, it will get worse.
The only reason for it to change is when people get vocal. You want things better - then ACT UP!
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