Cross-sound tunnel plan dropped

From CBS 2:

A proposal to build a tunnel under the Long Island Sound connecting Nassau and Westchester counties has been dropped.

State Department of Transportation Commissioner Paul Karas said Thursday they decided not to move forward with the plan. Karas did not reveal further details as to why they are abandoning the plan.

A study previously estimated the tunnel could cost up to $55 billion.

Queens College president paid to not live in school's mansion

From the NY Post:

Queens College has let a historic $2.5 million waterfront mansion with sweeping views of Little Neck Bay stand empty for three years after its current president chose to live in his Westchester home while getting a $5,000 monthly housing allowance.

While Felix Matos Rodriguez collects $60,000 a year to live in his own house, the CUNY-owned Douglaston manse collects dust, used only sporadically for college functions.

No, it's not that people hate you

From Yahoo/AP:

After months of searching to find a home for their mosque, a Muslim group settled on a century-old, three-story Tudor in a leafy neighborhood of a New York suburb, a fixer-upper they say would be perfect with the right renovations.

But not long after the sale went through last year, neighbors thought it was perfect just the way it was. A neighborhood group filed an application to have the building designated a city landmark and won final approval last month, meaning any exterior renovations will now have to go through a time-consuming permission process.

While city officials insisted the landmark status wouldn't prevent the home being used as a mosque, the Muslim organization saw something more sinister.

"We feel that we are being targeted," said Arshad Shariff, chairman of the Islamic Community Center of Mid-Westchester. "And unnecessary obstacles and hindrances are being placed because we are Muslim."

No, it's because you were planning to fuck up an historic house that people in the neighborhood are attached to and admire. Get it?

Westchester town afraid of becoming Queens

From the NY Times:

“A big part of the reason people come to Larchmont is for the charming homes,” said Sarah Bauer, one of the leaders of Preserve Larchmont. “We know they can be drafty and leaky, but if you wanted something big and new looming over you, you would go to Queens or Long Island.”

After a spate of teardowns the past few years, on Jan. 11 the Board of Trustees took the unusual step of passing a six-month moratorium on residential development in the one-square-mile village.

Why the village is attracting so many wrecking crews is not entirely clear. The most common explanation is that as neighboring communities like Scarsdale and Rye have become saturated with new housing, and cracked down on it, developers are looking farther afield.

What has most alarmed villagers, and intrigued developers, is not simply that old homes are being replaced with newer, bigger ones but rather that two, three or even four homes are being built where once there was just one. There have been 23 new homes built over the past decade, 14 resulting from demolitions and subdivisions, according to city records. With roughly 1,800 homes, that may not seem like much, but village officials said it was undertaking the moratorium to ensure the trend does not grow.

The governor don't need no stinkin' permits!

From the NY Post:

Domestic diva Sandra Lee has been renovating the tony Westchester County home she shares with Gov. Cuomo while blowing off the town’s permit process — and possibly dodging higher taxes, officials say.

The millionaire Food Network star got a relative steal on her six-bedroom home at 4 Bittersweet Lane in New Castle when she bought it for $1.2 million in early 2009, not long after home values crashed.

Since then, she’s been fixing up the property, known as Lily Pond, with virtually no consultation from town Building Inspector Bill Maskiell, The Journal News reported Sunday.

Maskiell said it took six months of “chasing and threatening’’ Lee in 2012 to get her to apply for a proper building permit for the $11,000 gazebo and shed she had already installed.

“I got no response from her people,’’ he told the Journal News. “I finally spoke with [Cuomo’s] people. They sat down with me and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Then, they didn’t get back to me. I finally sent a violation and got a response.

Finally, [Cuomo’s spokesman] Larry Schwartz got in touch with me.”

He said Lee — who is worth an estimated $20 million, according to the Web site Celebrity Net Worth — eventually got the permit, although the town’s assessor said that ultimately, the gazebo and shed did not affect her property assessment or $28,312 annual tax bill.

But there has been a host of renovations inside Lee’s home — and proudly shown off to the press — that were done without town approval, meaning she could be skirting higher taxes, the paper said.

The town’s property taxes are based on home values, so any upgrades could increase the amount.