Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Charity demolishing old Woodhaven house for group home

Photo from Project Woodhaven

Was headed south on Woodhaven Blvd this past Sunday when I noticed a nice big old house (that I believe recently contained doctors' offices) with a strange box-shaped hole on all sides of the roof - you could see right through it. I made a mental note to check the DOB online system when I got home.


88-38 Woodhaven Blvd has a full demo permit on file for both the house and garage. And not just a regular demo permit. No, this baby is going to be taken down with heavy equipment since they applied for a mechanical demo permit. What joy! And who is bringing this to us? Heartshare Human Services, a charity that services people with special needs.

There are no new building permits yet, but this article from the Queens Chronicle says that the home will house 10 adults and be slightly larger than the current house. Luckily, the zoning is R3-1 which limits the level of replacement crappiness, but they could always pull the "community facility" card out of the deck.

Judging from the way the house was being kept by this charity before the demo began and that Heartshare conveniently left out the fact that they were planning to demolish the existing structure when they went before CB9 last year for approval of their group home, the community needs to keep on top of them to make sure they stick to their publicly-made promises. It's not like they can expect elected officials to do it.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful Woodhaven!

Anonymous said...

Judging by the size of the apartment building to the right...this is in a higher density zoned nabe

What do you expect?
A small dwelling doesn't have a chance of survival.

It's very sad, but RIP, and amen!

Joe said...

Builders have been trying to bring this shit to Great Neck and Manhasset due to the single track LIRR to Manhattan.
There was a meeting last night and guess how many showed up to appose a builder trying to help get 3 homowners houses re-zoned ?
3 including myself !
Where were the rest ?
They said "naaa it never happen here" and stayed home watching amateur singing and dancing on TV.
I'm beginning to think perhaps my fellow fat lazy ass good for nothing sheep Americans deserve to loose everything.
Why do should I fight for the stupid who don't give a dam !
Perhaps high density rental shitboxes "diversity" is exactly what they deserve.

Anonymous said...

Joe that is our job. They only want Americans to be mindless consumers but with the world of social media (exhibit A is Queens Crap) the paradigm has changed.

Its only a matter of time before this media begins to dominate information dissemination and public discourse.

Stay the course.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Heartshare, but that many adults is not my idea of a "normalized" community residence. The only place you get that many adults living together is in a hotel... as far as the comment about "community facility" rest assured: that does not have "legs" if this has been approved as an IRA. I parent three extra-ordinary people, so I am not a NIMBY-ist - but this kind of density is wrong, wrong, wrong. This will be the largest group Heartshare residential has served, so far. Further, Heartshare has been focusing, lately, on meeting the way-underserved needs of people with Autism. These people shine when in smaller groups; when transitioning to new living situations they generally require intensive support (1:1 staff ratios or better, plus on-site clinicians and management/administrative staff). This is ill-advised - not so much from the community's point of view, but in terms of serving the needs of the future residents. Just saying...

Joe said...

"Joe that is our job"
I try my best..The town supervisor and his bailiff "Rusty lapdog" tried to ban me from meetings.
Called the cops said I'm a "big guy" who is a insubordinate disruptive trouble maker. :)
---LOL

They cut peoples talk time to 60 seconds so dirty details and negative possibility can be disclosed. Also postpone votes till July when people are on vacation to pass stinkin crapola ! My methods are a bit different but if THEY are gonna play dirty IM gonna play dirty and do whatever it takes to get people attention and disclose stealthy bullshit.
I was a performer..not scared of the public, motherf*ckers or microphones.

Anonymous said...

Another group home for failed politicians? Why can't we just send them to some farm upstate so they can milk each other?

Anonymous said...

I really thought that house was lovely. Sad to see it go. Are you suggesting they ripped it down and said its going to be a group home but eventually will want to turn it into apartments?