More houses in flood zone

From the Queens Chronicle:

Community Board 10 unanimously gave conditional approval to a developer looking to build a series of homes on a vacant lot in Hamilton Beach, with only one of the members abstaining from the vote.

The group of six houses would be listed as 102-04 to 102-24 Dunton Court and would all be semidetached structures on a block that only has one existing home.

John Calcagnile, the board’s Land Use Committee chairman, said the conditions of the approval hinge on the owner addressing drainage and runoff problems on the lot, as well as seeing if the block closer to the existing house can be widened. An architect representing the owner, listed on city documents as Edward Sze, said at the hearing the block near the proposed developments will be widened from 19 feet to 30, which would allow emergency vehicles to drive around the homes with no difficulty. Sze is under no legal obligation to widen the street near the house there now.

The proposed semidetached homes may face another obstacle, as some Hamilton Beach residents earlier this year voted to support a rezoning initiative that would only allow for detached one- or two-family homes to be built in the neighborhood and prohibit the ones proposed by Sze.

The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure for the rezoning has not yet kicked off. Should Sze want to avoid running into problems with it, he would have to have the foundations in place before any rezoning passes the Council.

So we're continuing to overdevelop in the flood plain? Great work.