From the Queens Chronicle:The Board of Standards and Appeals decided for the second time on Tuesday to not vote on a zoning variance for a medical facility in Astoria.
The eight-story edifice at 23-25 31 St. was partially erected when five homeowners who abut the construction started seeing cracks in their foundations, resident Robert Draghi said. They first asked the developer, Pali Realty, to assess the damage. No one showed.
Then in July the Draghis demanded the Department of Buildings conduct an audit. When the department came out, it saw the facility and 135-car parking garage was being built 20 feet from its property line instead of the legal 30. The DOB then issued a stop-work order that is still in place. The board asked for more information from Pali Realty. The vote will come before the board again on April 23.
If the BSA votes in favor of the zoning variance to allow the 10-foot reduction in the setback, Pali Realty will be able to restart construction.
Community Board 1 and the Queens Borough President’s Office recommended the variance with four stipulations: the gray brick wall separating the structure from the homes be finished with a desirable stucco finish; a barrier be installed in front of the air-conditioning unit to modify noise; the developers mitigate the problems with the adjacent homes using a third party; and the front of the building be lit for security reasons.
“We’re begging them to leave the stipulations,” Draghi said of the BSA. “We had a house, we want a house.”
The stipulations would require the developer to resolve the issue with the five owners.
8 comments:
All this is happening under the very nose of Councilman Don Pietro "junior" Vallone.
Make sure that this mob pol doesn't become borough president!
La famiglia di Vallone, political mafioso dynasty, has been around for too damn long.
It's way past time to put an end to their reign!
Avella for borough president!
He's the only man of the people that can be trusted.
GET RID OF THE BSA. And lets start making developers demolish illegal work, instead of the current practice...
"a desirable stucco finish"...?
If the BSA votes in favor of the zoning variance to allow the 10-foot reduction in the setback
I think this post is a little misleading. I was at the Community Board meeting the night this project came up for a vote.Yes, I agree the developer made a mistake but it had nothing to do with the wall in the picture. The wall is legal as per zoning. Blame that on our politicians.The set back above the wall is illegal and should have been built 10 feet further from the the property line.
Whatever happened to the Vallone and Community Board promise of keeping the original footprints of an existing building after it has been sold and raized in order to build higher, in this case the new 12 story limit they forced upon Astoria residents in order to change the existing zoning laws? This was all a scam to us taxpayers and residents here to placate a few out of the neighborhood OVERDEVELOPERS. This lot was a GAS STATION for 80 years, with 1/4 the blueprint this monstrosity has become. WHO ARE THEY KIDDING? DO they think NO ONE is left here who was born and raised here?
This is exactly what has happened in Queens where someone decides to sell a 2 family or 1 family house that had an original backyard, frontyard and side yards that is now open season by builders to rape. The foundations of our homes here WERE NOT MEANT TO HAVE A 12 STORY BUILDING BUTTED UP AGAINST THEM.
DID THIS COMMUNITY BOARD EVER THINK ABOUT THAT BEFORE THEY LET OUR NEIGHBORHOOD GO TO SHIT!
This monstrosity SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BUILT IN THIS FOOTPRINT AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED MONTHS AGO BY THE CORRUPT PAID OFF DOB, WHICH IT CERTAINLY WAS NOT.
And what is this 'stop work order' I keep hearing? The last 2 weeks have brought a shiny new skin of blue glass covering the entire building. TOTALLY OUT OF CHARACTER WITH THE NEIGHBORHOOD. How could there be a 'work stop order' if this glass was done in the last 2 weeks?
Our hearts go out to all the residents of 32nd street who's lives have been forever disrupted over this and to the whole entire block who, if this building continues and is rented, will get no sleep or peace because of constant air conditioning noise being reigned down upon them from this building.
This Vallone guy and this Community Board here need to RETIRE ALREADY. We don't need you. We don't want you. Please retire to Florida already and open a up a deli or something.
LEAVE US ALONE!
Vallone, what did you get in your overseas bank account for letting this crap get out of hand?
Any of our ever increasing real estate tax money that you keep voting for in order for these vampires to get their lobbied 20 year tax abatements?
Have the property owners with damaged foundations considered a class action? The longer Pali can be tied up with legal fees for a problem of its own making, now evidenced by a stop work order, the more likely they'd be to back away from this project altogether, I'd think.
The easiest way to defeat Vallone is for his footsteps to be dogged everywhere he goes by these issues.
So if he goes to eastern Queens and talks about, lets say, public safety, ask him about this. If talks about Civic Virture, ask him about this.
Of course, that will not happen. The people in easten Queens think that this will happen only in western Queens. If Vallone makes a promise that he will not do this in eastern Queens the locals of course will believe him.
He will neeevvvveeeerrrrr treat them that way, right?
Right.
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