The Light House

 

Who said McMansions were dead? This behemoth carbon footprint is lighting up 149th ave like a thousand suns.

  

It really stands out in the neighborhood. Kinda like the house from the Munsters or the Castle/Spaceship from The Rocky horror picture show. With the amount of electricity being wasted showing off it's worth here, it sort of resembles Deep Space Nine.

   

 

 

 

 

McMansion to replace former Halloran house

Ex-Council Member Dan Halloran is still in the clink, but his former Whitestone home won't be waiting for him when he gets out.

The property was sold and is in the process of being redeveloped.

One last pagan parting gift.

"With liberty and freedom to build crap"

"This corner on Albert Road and Hawtree Street by the Aqueduct Train Station has been vacant for over four decades. (Hell, maybe more, I am going by how long I have been alive.) Anyway, suddenly this regal looking monstrosity has sprouted on that corner.

I cannot fathom any rationale why someone would build and some moron bureaucrat in the DOB approve building something on this corner which contains a very busy traffic corridor with the Belt Parkway exit that's maybe 30 yards away and an overpass from Howard Beach where the only direction is towards this properties path, much less build something this massive and garish.

This may be the holy grail of Queens Crap and may be the last straw when it comes to the issue of over-development and in the case of this neighborhood, incongruous and ludicrous house building."

JQ LLC, Impunity City (Your City)

That's a lot of house...

From Curbed:

It should come as no surprise that the most expensive home for sale in Queens right now—according to StreetEasy, at least—is in the tony enclave of Malba, situated at the foot of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge on the East River waterfront. (One ambitious broker once described’ the neighborhood as “the Hamptons of Queens,” which, sure.)

It should also come as no surprise that the house—listed with Ryan Serhant, and asking a whopping $8.795 million—is an enormous single-family property (with McMansiony qualities) built in the 1990s, as is typical of homes in this price range in this particular part of town.

The 12,000-square-foot space—16,000, if you take its full lot into account—comes with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a seven-car driveway (and a three-car garage), two family rooms, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, a wood-fired oven in its second kitchen, an outdoor kitchen, and a 40-foot in-ground pool, and really, that’s just scratching the surface.

Flushing has its own "half house"

"The owner of 141-20 Booth Memorial Avenue (which I drive by a lot) McMansionified his attached house, which must be hell for the neighbors at 141-18, judging by the complaints on the DOB website. I can't believe they let the owner do this." - anonymous

Similar to the Elmhurst Half-House, one of the earliest posts on QC!

City Council repeals McMansion permit rule

From Brooklyn Daily:

[The City] Council demolished a rule on Oct. 27 that lets Ridgites drastically enlarge their homes because people were taking advantage of so-called “special permits” to erect gaudy McMansions. The reversal is a win, because loophole abusers were tearing the neighborhood apart by building flashy digs that stuck out on otherwise idyllic blocks, one local leader said.

“A home is your biggest asset, and when you have someone who applies for a special permit and does not respect the character of the block, it pits neighbors against neighbors,” said Community Board 10 district manager Josephine Beckmann. “I am very happy that after many years of advocacy for its removal it’s finally completed.”

The permits were available to residents seeking to expand one- and two-family homes larger than zoning laws allow. The Department of City Planning created the permits so families could enlarge their homes as they had children — rather than having to move to a bigger house every time a new member joins the family.

The community board originally opted into the program 20 years ago believing that the city would ensure the expansions did not alter the neighborhood’s character, but the permits were frequently used for projects community leaders felt were inappropriate, said Beckmann.

“I think it was well-intended, but in time I think we realized that it really wasn’t being used as it was intended,” she said. “Now this protects community character and stops developers from using it to expand houses just because they can.”

Community Board 10 has tried to deep-six the special permits in the past, but the notion never gained traction. This go-around, Councilman Vincent Gentile (D–Bay Ridge) and the Department of City Planning helped the board draft an amendment to zoning law that would remove it from the special-permit program, and Gentile got his colleagues in Council to unanimously approve the measure.

We're liking this Gentile fellow!

Why McMansions are so ugly

From Slate:

What is it that so unnerves us about McMansions? Why are they so ugly, why do we hate them, and why—despite their atrociousness—do builders keep building them? These are the questions that the blog Worst of McMansions (aka McMansion Hell, per its URL) sets out to answer. Authored by an architect who calls herself “Kate,” the Tumblr has been around only since late July but has spread across the web faster than a subdevelopment through a vacant tract of suburbia. The site catalogs the most egregious examples of terrible overbuilt architecture, delivering ridicule to these behemoths—along with a series of McMansions 101 posts, which explain patiently everything that’s wrong with them, architecturally speaking.

The site’s fans seemed to have flocked to it not just for its ability to put words to that uneasy disgust that so many have when facing these gargantuan homes. We’ve always known they were ugly, but until now we didn’t know why, exactly. A normal house, for example, is made up of a “primary mass” (the central architectural shape of the building) and a few key “secondary masses,” building-block shapes that complement and highlight that primary mass. A McMansion, on the other hand, will have so many secondary masses—gables, garages, entryways, and so on—“that the primary mass is reduced to a role of filling in gaps between the secondary masses.” Nor is the McMansion balanced; unlike a Victorian, its individual pieces don’t have equal visual weight. It is often out of scale with its small lot and out of proportion with itself: inconsistent window sizes, dormers, and gables of contrasting style.

What emerges in Kate’s McMansions 101 posts in particular is that nearly all of the sins of McMansions often boil down to the same thing: violations of order, harmony, and symmetry. What makes a normal house successful is a sense of balance, with equally weighted elements and an overall sense of aesthetic cohesion. What makes a McMansion an eyesore is its jumble of eaves, columns, oversized garages, and other compounded fiascos.

Living in a McMansion's shadow

"This is a photo comparing the size of a typical rebuild with the older homes in Floral Park, NY. If you've never been to Floral Park, Queens, get prepared to see a dumpster on every corner. That's the new status symbol.

Buyers buy little houses with nice-sized yards and cut down old growth trees to stuff oversized houses on the old property. The new houses overshadow the neighboring houses and have little, if any, landscaping. A lot of the times, the trees and grass at the curb are eliminated and the front lawns are paved over to make room for the multiple cars owned by the multiple families living in what used to be one family/one owner houses.

The streets are now crowded with cars and the neighborhood is hotter and noisier due to the loss of noise buffering, cooling trees and bushes in vanishing yards. Rebuilds have less frontage and there's more cement all around. What used to be suburban, is slowly becoming more urban." - anonymous

They destroyed paradise to put this up

Followup on previous Queens Crap post from 2014.

Above photo was before. Bottom photo is now.

You can judge for yourself whether or not this improves the neighborhood the way the alleged owner claimed he would in the comments section last time around.

Woman insists she is legal guardian for 25 kids

From the Queens Chronicle:

Shu-Jing Cao, the legal guardian of the group of children that lives at her home at 202-12 32 Ave. in Bayside, says they are well taken-care-of.

“They call me mother,” she said. “I treat them like my own children.”

When asked, Cao did not confirm or deny that 25 children are living at the house, an allegation raised by a civic activist concerned about conditions there and their impact on the neighborhood. But there are two other adults at the property, she said, who also look after the children.

The children attend schools in District 26, one of the best and most overcrowded districts in the entire city.

“They are innocent children,” she said. “They have a right to have education in America ... They’re safe.”

Although the city has not taken any legal action against the house, land use expert Paul Graziano doubts that Cao could be the legal guardian for all the kids living there if there actually are 25.

“No way she’s guardian of 25 kids,” Graziano said in an emailed statement. “The city wouldn’t allow it.”

The land use expert also says that it would not be legal for such a number of people to be living together in the same home.

“Three unrelated persons are allowed in each unit, children or otherwise,” he added. Although the building has two units according to its most recent Certificate of Occupancy, if 25 kids are there, more than three unrelated persons would have to be living in at least one unit. “Otherwise, they would have to get a specific Certificate of Occupancy — which they couldn’t get in a 1- or 2-family zone to begin with, like an R3X zone where this house is located — that would allow them to run a business or charity taking in multiple children for residency.”

F'ed up on Fitchett

They want to build a McMansion here but the plans were rejected.



And then there's what's directly across the street...

The plans were revoked and it's been sitting in this condition for 2 years.

The neighbors must love it.

Eyesore McMansion almost finished

From the Queens Chronicle:

Construction on the castle-like house at 179-16 Grand Central Pkwy. is moving steadily along, after more than a decade of oft-stalled construction and thousands of dollars in fines from the Department of Buildings.

Stakeholders are pleased that the building is no longer stuck mid-development. Though Community Board 8 District Manager Marie Adam-Ovide used to receive complaints about the house, she said that they stopped since construction resumed.

“Nobody likes to see those empty shells of houses and no one living there,” Jamaica Estates Association President Martha Taylor, who also serves on the community board, told the Queens Chronicle.
The property had been purchased in 2001; a DOB permit was applied for in 2003; construction began in 2005.

Behold the most beautiful yard you've ever seen!

You may remember this post from 2014 regarding the property located on 60th Drive in Maspeth. I was told at the time to wait until the owner was done because it would be the nicest yard we've ever seen. Well, here you go. That's a humdinger of a horizontal enlargement.

It's a good thing I'm getting my allergy shots what with all that green on the property!

How many garages does one family need?

DOB asked to audit Bayside's attached McMansion

You may recall Bayside's attached McMansion

Notation at bottom of Schedule "A" says ONE-FAMILY DWELLING

Zoning Diagram says Dwelling Units: 3

Now there's a call for an audit by DOB from Senator Avella.

Momentum builds to protect small rowhouses

From the NY Times:

Some blocks are graced by quaint two-bedroom, one-story rowhouses — with small front yards, tiny porches and peaked roofs. These houses have become the latest focus in a clash throughout New York between homeowners who want to develop their properties to the limits allowed by law, and preservationists lobbying for stronger laws to protect those properties from development.

The preservationists argue that single-family rowhouses imbue some neighborhoods — particularly in Queens — with their essential character. But under existing zoning laws, there is no specific designation for single-family rowhouses that provides protection against increasing the number of units, or against out-of-scale and out-of-character expansions.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” said Richard Hellenbrecht, the vice president of the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella association of more than 100 community groups. “Lovely, affordable homes being squeezed out by monstrosities.”

The architecture is secondary, said Paul Graziano, an urban planning consultant from Flushing. “What it is is affordable rowhouses of modest means, and for people of modest means.”

“It’s stuff worth protecting,” he said. “We’re talking about the basic character of a neighborhood.”

Ms. Lin — unwittingly, she says — thrust herself into the center of the debate soon after buying her rowhouse at 146-15 56th Road for $558,000 in 2013. She had started to renovate, but quickly determined that it would make more sense financially to tear the house down and build a bigger place.

It also made logistical and emotional sense: She wanted a home big enough to house not only her two young children but also her father and brother.

Melinda Katz, a Democrat and the Queens borough president, has vowed to press for protections for single-family rowhouses.

“The rowhouses and the communities that form around that are so important to our future,” she said in an interview. “We value the low-density portion of our neighborhoods.”

“Where will our parents live when they come over from China?” asked Lin Xin, an employee with a contracting firm that had been involved in several of the projects in Queensboro Hill. “Why do you think we work so hard? Why do we scrimp and save? This is why. We want to be reunited with our families. We want to sit around the same table together.”

Queensboro Hill nightmare continues

"Hey Crappy,

In less than one year, a third oversized house is now being built on 56th Road in Queensboro Hill. The second house I wrote to you about a few months ago is nearly complete (it went up so fast I could have swore they brought in some Amish men to build it).

It looks like all the faux grandstanding "Mr. Useless" Peter Koo did (along with the even more useless Nily Rozic) just energized another resident to build this skyscraper-esque monstrosity in-between quaint row houses. Once this third one goes up, the block is officially ruined. The aesthetic of the neighborhood means nothing to many of the new residents in the area.

I've attached pictures of the house being prepared for demolition, along with images of the nearly completed second building. You can see the dramatic difference. It's astonishing to many residents how rapidly and dramatically the neighborhood has gone down hill and turned into the wild west of overdevelopment. RIP Queensboro Hill." - anonymous

Casa di Como is for sale!

I was perusing the local real estate listings and lo and behold, I spotted a familiar house. Former Council Member Anthony Como is selling his Middle Village palace. The asking price is $1,699,000. The last time this blog visited, it was 2010.

Unfinished Jamaica Estates castle is an eyesore

From the NY Post:

This man’s home is his castle — and a pain in the neck to everyone else.

The half-built remains of what looks like a medieval castle sit abandoned alongside the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, a testament to grand ambitions gone horribly wrong.

Joseph Jimenez and his wife Josette Said set out to build a dream home on a vacant plot of land in leafy Jamaica Estates, a neighborhood full of gracious tudors and colonials.

“We thought it was a good idea because the land was being used by vagrants,” said Martha Taylor, a member of the local community board and president of the Jamaica Estates Association.

Said, who bought the property in 2001, first applied for a permit with the city Department of Buildings in 2003, and began work in 2005.

The outline of a manor that would have made King Arthur feel at home, complete with turret-like accents, sprouted on the site, but then construction stalled.

Locals began catapulting complaints about the eyesore to the DOB and to local officials, who could do little other than scratch their heads.

“Unfortunately, the city does not have a mechanism to force people to finish building,” said Marie Adam-Ovide, the district manager of Community Board 8.

Too much paving

From the Queens Chronicle:

For community activists throughout Queens who feel that yard violations are becoming a creeping concern to their communities, getting into someone’s yard (as in their business) at least, is the only way to curb violations.

“Enforcement seems to be the bottleneck,” said Alex Blenkinsopp of the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association about the slow response he says the city has on checking in on the violations.

For Blenkinsopp, implementing yard laws requiring greenery has been an ongoing struggle since the Yards Text Amendments was passed in 2008. Propelled by elected officials such as then-Councilman and now state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Whitestone), who were concerned about the quality of life and the stress to the environment in low-density neighborhoods, the laws restrict what a homeowner could do to his or her outside property.

Prior to the code changes, front yards were not required to be planted but with them, a certain percentage of greenery had to be planted based on square footage, with 20 percent for a yard less than 20 square feet and 50 percent for a yard 60 square feet or greater. The laws also addressed limiting the number of parking spaces, curb cuts and fence height.

Despite Blenkinsopp submitting several complaints to the DOB, which would issue the violations, he says their response is slow and not thorough enough.

One of his grievances over an allegedly illegal curb cut and driveway was dismissed altogether since at the time of inspection, “they couldn’t locate the illegal driveway, even though the resident had put a sign on his fence demanding that people not block his ‘driveway,’” he said.

A search on the DOB’s website of a block in Forest Hills known to many as home to “McMansions,” shows four other instances of investigations which were also “resolved” because no violations were found at the time of inspection for curb cuts. One complaint entered in October 2012 for illegal paving has yet to be inspected.

Why did Vallone, Sr. vouch for this guy?

From the NY Post:

A playboy used-car dealer who looted his Queens employer out of millions to fund a filthy rich lifestyle was smacked with a seven-year prison term in Central Islip federal court Wednesday.

Luxury-loving Chris Orsaris spent his cash on everything from a Trump World Tower apartment to a mansion in Southampton. He has already served nearly four years of the sentence after his 2010 arrest and faces an additional three behind bars.

Orsaris – who fashioned himself as an opulent thug and surrounded himself with flashy hoodlums – inflated commission paperwork from the Major World Automotive dealers while he served as a general manager there, papers state.

Showing boundless greed, the 41-year-old fraudster once bought an $860,000 boat called “B Low Me” – and later claimed that it was stolen so he could collect on an insurance claim.

Court papers further reveal that Orsaris plunked down wads of cash to pay for a $5.5 million Trump World Tower apartment, a $3 million Hamptons home, and a $2 million Miami condo.

Judge Leonard Wexler ordered Orsaris to forfeit those prized properties – and to fork over $13.8 million to his former employer.

In addition, Orsaris owes $2.7 million in back taxes to the IRS and another $500,000 to an insurance company for the bogus boat claim.

Orsaris’ high powered attorneys from the firm of Benjamin Brafman unsuccessfully argued that he be given time served for his crimes. “He has done things wrong, he has admitted to them, and he has done his best to make this situation right,” they wrote in a court filing.

Orsaris even had former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone – a former Major World client – write a letter to the court to vouch for his character.

“He had an excellent reputation in my community and attended meetings of various civic and charitable groups where I was present and was always helpful and courteous,” Vallone wrote in March.