Rezoning a car wash

From the Queens Chronicle:

The city Planning Commission on May 24 cleared the way for a Jackson Heights car wash to be replaced by an eight-story commercial building by unanimously approving a rezoning measure for the site.

The matter will now go to the City Council for a vote and is expected to pass as area Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (D-East Elmhurst) is in favor of the rezoning and proposed development.
Developer H&M LLC plans to replace Classic Car Wash, located at 74-04 Northern Blvd., with a commercial-use building, with the ground floor holding retail space.

The second and third would hold 219 parking spots, with a community space on the fourth and offices on five to eight.

To do so, the site must be rezoned from a C8-1 District to a C4-3.

H&M LLC states in its application to the Department of City Planning that construction on the site could begin sometime in 2018 and be completed in a little over a year.

And while housing is not proposed for the site at this time, the CPC also unanimously approved a request by the developer to require 25 percent of any residential units that could be built in the future to be affordable — under the controversial Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program approved by the Council last year.

Car wash workers ripped off

From DNA Info:

A group of car washers is accusing its Jamaica employer of paying less than the minimum wage and cheating workers out of overtime.

The workers, who filed a lawsuit against A.J.A. Car Wash at 107-05 Merrick Blvd. in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday, said they are seeking back wages which they estimate add up to $400,000.

“I generally worked six days a week for over 70 hours a week but the boss doesn’t pay us any overtime,” said Miguel Yax, 34, who has worked at A.J.A. Car Wash for more than 15 years.

According to the lawsuit, Yax, who in 2009 was making $4.75 an hour, currently gets $7 an hour.

Other workers, the lawsuit claims, are paid $6 an hour.

The lawsuit also says that the car wash sends workers home without pay on rainy days and does not divide tips equally among the employees.

Beware of who washes your car!

From the Daily News:

A dopey Queens car wash employee mistakenly slammed his foot onto a car's gas pedal instead of the brake — and ended up plowing into four lanes of traffic.

Dramatic dashboard camera footage shows the 2009 Lexus IS250 first being slowly driven through the cleaning machines in Long Island City, reports Jalopnik.com.

As the vehicle emerges from the garage, however, it suddenly lurches forward.

The driver is heard swearing in Spanish as the car narrowly avoids hitting another customer and speeds across the road.

It sideswipes one vehicle before finally coming to a stop on the opposite sidewalk.

Bus, meet car wash

Leave it to DOT to place a bus stop in the driveway of a car wash.

Are taxpayers getting hosed on car washes?

From the Daily News:

New York is on track to spend more than $400,000 this year just to wash its cars.

That includes paying as much as $110 to clean a little Toyota Prius - and $263.25 to clean a GMC Sierra pickup truck.

Is that too much? Nobody seems to know.

Stephen Goldsmith, the deputy mayor trying to save $500 million a year by streamlining how the city runs, is trying to find out.

"I think it's an interesting issue," he said. "What should the car wash policy be?"

The Daily News tracked down more than $280,000 in city spending this year for car washes, using data from Controller John Liu's office.

Two-thirds of that, or $177,000, was for the NYPD's 3,000-vehicle fleet. The next-highest agency, the Department of Transportation, spent around $20,000.

"There are important reasons why having police cars look good is really important. They're a symbol of the city," Goldsmith said.

"I would hope that the police fleet would be cleaner than the rest of the fleet. Now, I have no idea whether that's too much or too few."

There's no standard policy for how often to wash the city's 26,000 vehicles, the largest municipal fleet in the nation. There's no standard rate for how much the city pays, either.

The city's entire $283 million vehicle maintenance budget seems to run the same way, with no standard policy at all.

Nine city agencies operate 125 garages with employees. Other agencies send their vehicles out to private garages for repairs, with no mechanism to keep those costs under control.

At the Brooklyn Truck Wash in East Williamsburg, the DOT regularly pays $236.25 to wash its trucks - even though the price list on the wall says trucks cost $65 and up. No manager was there to answer questions about it.

At Sparkles Car Wash in Flushing, Queens, records show the DOT has paid $110 each to wash cars like Toyota Priuses, Ford Escapes and Ford Tauruses.

General manager Roberto Ebarilli said those must have been heavy detailing jobs, which usually cost $160 and up - but the city gets a break.

Two teens shot in Cambria Heights

QUEENS (WABC) -- A fight among students escalated into gunfire that left two people wounded.

The shooting happened just after 3:00 p.m.at Linden and Springfield Boulevards.

Police said a group of teens from a nearby high school had gathered there. A fight broke out, and at some point one of them pulled out a gun. At least three shots were fired, according to witnesses. One of the victims, a 13-year-old, was shot in the head. He was listed in critical condition at LI Jewish Hospital.

The second teen was an innocent bystander. A 17-year-old working at the Cambria Car Wash and Detail Center suffered a gunshot wound to his thigh. He was listed in stable condition.

Police were still trying to determine if the younger victim was a bystander or a target.