A small victory in Astoria

Crappy,

Happy Birthday and thank you so much for passion, love and care you put into your blog each and every day.

I can't thank you enough for telling your readers about the Astoria Medical Center monstrosity behind our homes.

My neighbors and I scored a major victory when the BSA made Pali Realty move their parking garage exhaust vents from the rear to the front, preserving out yards and quality of life. It was due in part to the supportive letters from your readers.

One of my long-term goals is to establish the BSA Toolkit, which would empower residents and activists with the skills, resources, know-how, vocabulary, case studies and advice to fight developers successfully.

I'll let you know when I'm ready to roll it out and get feedback.

Enjoy the weekend and any celebrations you have planned!

Warm regards,

Norm

Developer demands access to properties it damaged

From the Queens Courier:

Developers of a nearly complete medical center in Astoria plan to take adjacent homeowners to court to gain key access to their backyards, residents said.

Pali Realty needs permission to enter the backyards of about five adjacent homes in order to wrap up an eight-story ambulatory care center project at 23-25 31st Street.

But dozens of residents, who say they have suffered foundation cracks and water damage since the project broke ground in late 2009, plan to adamantly deny them entrance.

“We don’t want them in our yards,” said homeowner Robert Draghi. “They have done severe damage to numerous houses and they refuse to even discuss settling damages. They never made a single offer to any of the homeowners.”

The company is prepared to gain access through a court order, according to a letter it sent the homeowners early last month.

Pali Realty wants no more than 60 days to waterproof and apply a cement stucco finish to the back wall of the medical center, the letter says.

The developer would need access to a four to six foot wide strip of land behind the building to erect scaffolding and remove piles of shoring steel.

It said it would obtain “additional insurance” to cover any potential damage to properties.

But Draghi, who has lived in his home for 13 years, said that promise has been made before.

“We have a letter from two years ago saying if any damages happen during construction, they would fix them,” he said. “They didn’t do that.”

Draghi said the homeowners would only grant Pali Realty access if developers formally agree to repair damages made since construction began.

Final BSA decision on Astoria medical building coming soon

Hello,

I just wanted to give you and your readers an update:

The final BSA ruling regarding 23-25 31st Street is scheduled for May 21st.

Pali Realty, LLC and owner Yiannis Konstantinidis assigned the insurance claims to Chartis, the insurer for Sea Breeze, the General Contractor.

Chartis turned down offers of a settlement offered up by two of the most heavily damaged homeowners.

Attached is my final letter to the Board of Standards and Appeals; please feel free to publish it.

Kind regards,

Norm Sutaria

Sutaria BSA Testimony

No resolution to Astoria BSA nightmare

From the Queens Chronicle:

For the third straight hearing and the third straight month, the Board of Standards and Appeals declined to vote on whether to grant a zoning variance for a medical building on 31st Street in Astoria, instead postponing the decision again until next month.

The project’s developers and the neighbors who live behind the building have been fighting for years over substantial damage to the neighbors’ homes that they say was caused by the facility’s construction. The neighbors are also worried about noise, light and air pollution they say the structure and the 135-car parking garage may cause.

There is currently a stop-work order on the building after the Department of Buildings found last year that the building was built 10 feet too deep into the rear yard, in violation of zoning regulations. Pali Realty, the developer, can’t start work again until it obtains the zoning variance from the BSA, which has given the neighbors the opportunity to voice their concerns.

The case is a bit unorthodox because if [neighbor Robert] Draghi had not used a little-known maneuver through the city’s bureaucracy, he may never have been in the position to negotiate with Pali Realty at all.

The developers had been ignoring Draghi for years, he said, and last summer, Draghi and his wife decided they’d had enough of empty promises from contractors and inaction from the Department of Buildings and Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria).

So they used what Draghi called their “last resort”: they went to the DOB to demand an audit of the near-completed medical facility in person. Draghi said they had to do “tons and tons of research” before finding that the audit was an option.

Vallone said he was unaware of the audit process but is glad Draghi used it. Though he never got personally involved, his staff had been working with Draghi and the other neighbors. Vallone said he is “extremely upset” about the situation.

Peter Vallone been a city council member for almost 12 years and didn't know that the DOB audits projects? Every civic person in Queens is aware of this. And he admits that he never got personally involved? Why the hell not? Maybe he wants to be our borough president so he can personally walk across the hall and tell the Queens DOB to lay off his friends' projects.