Thursday, April 16, 2015

CB7 votes against College Point land deal

From the Queens Courier:

S&L Aerospace Metals LLC, located at 120-22 28th St. in Flushing, is looking to purchase two plots of land from the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). One plot of land is owned by the city and the other is owned by the EDC.

The debate on whether or not to recommend allowing the sale came about because, after an asphalt company, Cofire Asphalt Corp., acquired some of the land in a 2010 land swap, Cofire did not take proper care of the plot.

“The deal was they were going to clean it,” explained Chuck Apelian, first vice chairman of CB 7. “They were going to maintain the operations at the site…the stipulations were all part of the deed restriction. None of these took place.”

Even though the previous deal was not handled correctly, the board made it abundantly clear that they support S&L and their operation.

“I support S&L; they know it,” Apelian said. “I also explained to them why we did what we did and we think it is ultimately to the benefit of, not only the community, but to S&L and everybody that this gets done the right way.”

“We can’t approve a land sale of contaminated land that was supposed to be cleaned up five years ago,” he added.

While some members agreed with Apelian, others felt that recommending denying the sale would be punishing S&L for something they had no control over.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"“I support S&L; they know it,” Apelian said...."
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Apparently, they don't realize that he supports them.

Jackson Heights Johnny said...

No pun intended, but is anyone holding Cofire's feet to the fire, so to speak?

What can be done NOW to get them to do what they should have done THEN?

Anonymous said...

I guess that Chuck Apelian wasn't offered a printing contract from them to go to his "Prestone" firm.

Maybe they offered too small a contract.
Chuck will make up for that by securing Paul Vallone's contract for printing his campaign posters.

He got Paul's money last time around.

Why is this permitted?

Shouldn't Chuck be chucked from CB7 for a conflict of interest? Nah, that is likely considered "honest graft".

Anonymous said...

I think this was a good move on the community board's part. The point of shooting this down was to bring attention to the fact that Cofire needs to be held accountable for the remediation work they were supposed to do 5 years ago. Without it, things could get really bad for S&L if they have to clean the site after construction. There is still time to keep on schedule for this S&L expansion.