D. Miller looking to reduce truck parking time

From the Times Ledger:

A southeast Queens City councilman is sponsoring legislation to reduce the time commercial trucks can park on streets from three hours to 90 minutes in an attempt to reduce the burden on affected communities.

City Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans) said that when he first broached the notion of Council legislation to combat the problem, he found other council members were dealing with similar situations in their own districts.

The preponderance of trucks blocking traffic and idling is a constant source of frustration for southeast Queens residents, both in the commercial corridors of downtown Jamaica and on residential avenues. Int. No. 1473 would revise the law to shorten the amount of time before traffic enforcers or NYPD officers can give an idling commercial vehicle a demand that they move or a fine. Miller said the vehicles are often idling overnight, running their engines for air conditioning in the summer or heat in the winter. Thus, the health of residents can be compromised.

The legislation was referred by the full Council to the Committee on Transportation and has garnered several sponsors, including Queens Councilmen Donovan Richards (D-Arverne), Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) and Paul Vallone (D-Bayside). Miller said greater enforcement was needed, recalling trucks usually based in Elmont, L.I., that parked on the Queens side of the border. They were taking advantage of the lax enforcement, Miller said.

Commercial vehicles are prohibited on residential property

From the Queens Chronicle:

A Flushing man wants two commercial trucks parked at his neighbor’s house to hit the road.

Manzar Karim is sick of commercial vehicles being parked in the driveway of a house at 33-55 159 St.

“There are two trucks,” Karim, who lives nearby, told the Chronicle. “There’s no warehouse, no shops, nothing, in about 30, 40 blocks. It’s a resident area, completely.”

The area is zoned R1-2A, a residential designation.

He spoke to the offices of Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) and state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) about the issue and filed a 311 complaint.

The building is being rented to a family by Feng Liu, who bought the house in October. He has been issued a ticket by the Department of Buildings for the vehicles, which he says are not parked at the house overnight.

“I recently acquired this property like two months ago and I leased it out to one family,” he said. “They own a moving company where they usually have a lot of stuff to move around but usually at night they rent a spot somewhere else for a monthly fee.”

The senator wrote the DOB last month urging it to look into the truck situation. According to Avella spokesman Conner Quinn, the agency has not sent a response yet.
Vallone’s office also reached out to the DOB before the ticket was issued and plans on following up if the problem is not solved.

This is a problem all over Queens and is why the borough looks like one big truck yard.

Jamaica: not for the faint of heart

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Betty Davis in the movie "Dead Ringer" had the famous line "What a Dump". Well, if she were alive and saw Jamaica, that is exactly what she would say, well she probably would say, "What a Fucking Dump" and the below photos do not deny this. I mean, doesn't anyone care...... elected officials, community board 12, Melinda Katz who all of a sudden is on the Jamaica bandwagon, but seems to care less about the quality of life issues and the many problems this community has, which many are brought on by bottom of the barrel folks who are the albatross around the neck of Jamaica. I mean don't any of you elected officials, church and community leaders have any fucking pride, are you not ashamed. I mean this shit has been like this so long, I think all of you are used to this ghetto mess and think it is totally normal. It is the same shit, over and over. I mean talk about keeping the black community down and by leaders of color to boot.

So, let's get to the fun stuff.

City missing out on a lot of dough

From the Times Newsweekly:

City Comptroller John C. Liu announced that an audit of the city Department of Finance’s (DOF) collection of parking tickets discovered that the agency has failed to go after millions of dollars in fines owed by companies with delivery fleets, as the agency gave discounts on their tickets.

“It’s bad enough that people feel like they’re constantly blitzed with parking tickets,” Liu said. “It’s absolutely galling to now find that the city lets big companies off the hook on millions in parking tickets. At the minimum, the city should be as efficient collecting money from big companies as it is from residents and small business owners, who apparently never get a break.”

The DOF manages two programs that offer commercial fleets discounts on parking tickets. The NYC Delivery Solutions (Stipulated Fine) program covers companies that make quick deliveries or service calls, such as private mail couriers. The DOF’s Commercial Abatement Program enrolls commercial fleets that are not engaged in time-sensitive services, such as plumbing repair companies.

To enroll in the discount programs, companies first must pay all their outstanding tickets, waive their right to challenge future tickets, and agree to pay fines within 15 days. The DOF can remove any company that fails to abide by the agreement from the program and levy fines on them without the discount.

Liu’s audit found many companies that did not live up to the agreement and ignored large outstanding debts on their parking tickets without any penalty from the DOF.

Private citizens, whose vehicles can be towed or booted if they fail to contest or pay $350 in tickets within 100 days, were once able to obtain discounts on parking tickets. The DOF canceled this discount program for private citizens as of January.

Midville commercial vehicle crap

From the Forum:

This commercial vehicle has, once again, been illegally parking in a driveway at 61-26 71st Street in Middle Village. A reader e-mailed The Forum about this, saying that the owner of the van has been parking there again and that another of the owner’s commercial vehicles has been parked on the street every night. The Forum previously published a photo of this van back in February, and it didn’t have a license plate back then, either. The homeowner has previously gotten citations for violating zoning regulations.

Illegal curb cut & driveway in Elmhurst

"The above pictures are taken from my mother’s neighbor’s home (54-01 80th Street – at the corner of 54th Avenue). He actually created this driveway. He painted the curb yellow, created a concrete ribbon driveway, and has a sign “No Parking.” Totally illegal. He parks commercial vehicles from his fish business in the backyard. The DOB does not respond to complaints filed. It’s not a priority and they will not take additional complaints until the other complaints have been investigated. The complaints were filed in January 2012. So, we get to look at the commercial box trucks decorated with graffiti, along with the exhaust fumes leaking into the rear bedroom windows at 4:30 a.m. Monday-Saturday.

Maybe someone can help us on your end. Thank you, kindly." - anonymous

Elmhurst is not alone.

How many things can you find wrong with this photo?

The DOB still hasn't responded to a complaint about this property yet from last year. So let's help them out by identifying all the issues here.

Improved Garage House - now with parking lot!

Mazeau Street's totally illegal Garage House keeps getting more blighted. Now we see a variety of vehicles parked on the "front lawn" area, including commercial vehicles in a residential zone.
Great job, DOB Borough Commissioner Ira Gluckman!