CB7 approves huge Whitestone development project

From the Queens Tribune:

Community Board 7 approved a plan to build 21 single-family homes fronting on a street not legally mapped by the city, which will be built by developer Tim O’Sullivan as part of the project.

The project is located on the plot of land between Powell’s Cove Boulevard, 150th Street, 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue—part of the land that once held the Cresthaven Country Club, which closed in 1989. O’Sullivan purchased the six-acre plot in 2015. The project, called The Bridges at Whitestone, calls for 45 single-family homes. The homes are all in keeping with the zoning of the neighborhood, but part of the project places 21 of those homes along Sullivan Drive—a street not mapped by the city that will be built by O’Sullivan through the middle of the site. That element of the project needed to be approved by the Board of Standards and Appeals, which includes the community board’s opinion in its decision. On Monday night, Community Board 7 voted unanimously to approve the project, setting the stage for its completion.

Approval from the community board has been pending since September, when the proposal was first introduced at a meeting. As part of the Board of Standards and Appeals process, O’Sullivan needed the street to be approved by a number of entities, including the community board, the fire department and the Department of Transportation (DOT).

Less crap in the cove

From the Times Ledger:

The city hopes to stop the overflow of sewage into Powell’s Cove with improvements to sewer infrastructure and the Tallman Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The city Department of Environmental Protection updated the College Point Civic Association last month on the progress of the project.

Crews will soon begin work on the Tallman Island Wastewater Treatment Plant before moving on to building the Whitestone Interceptor which when completed will be a new pipe to help a mixture of rainwater and sewage reach the plant without getting backlogged. Some of that water, called combined sewer overflow, currently spills out of a pipe at the edge of Powell’s Cove Park.

“Right now it’s spilling into the cove,” said Colin Johnson, of the DEP, referring to instances when heavy rainfall overwhelms the system and triggers the overflow.

The DEP is about to make improvements to the plant to accommodate the new flow patterns. Those improvements, along with the construction of the extra pipeline beneath the park, are expected to be completed in August, 2014.

Wastewater from Whitestone currently flows westward toward College Point through a pipe beneath 11th Avenue.

At the same time, wastewater from Flushing flows north toward College Point through another pipe called the Flushing interceptor.

At the intersection of the two, a problem arises.