Katz issues statement on Manhattan park funding

From DNA Info:

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Katz defended the funding for Four Freedoms Park, which will be used to improve lighting on the park's shoreline facing Long Island City.

"Four Freedoms Park is a beautiful memorial that honors the life and legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt, and stands as a universal reminder of the Four Freedoms that still ring true today: for speech and worship, from want and fear," Katz's spokeswoman said.

"The lighting will make it more attractive and enhance visibility from Queens," she added.

Check out the comments. They're great.

You see, dear readers, Katz's developer buddies have poured billions of dollars into development along the LIC coast and they deserve to have our tax money thrown toward a project that can be used to attract interest in their overpriced condos. Katz obliged. Every weekly newspaper and news website just copied and pasted her press release last week without analyzing it. This is how it works around here. And this is how these bozos keep getting elected.

If you want a good chuckle, check out NY1's story. It hits the nail on the head.

Fewer Queens foreclosures

From the Queens Courier:

According to the comptroller’s report, areas immediately outside of New York City – such as Long Island and the mid-Hudson region – have seen the greatest number of pending foreclosures with cases rising 63 percent from 25,097 at the beginning of 2013 to 40,985 this year.

However, although pending foreclosure cases across upstate grew by 47 percent, New York City experienced nearly a drop of 10 percent over the two-year period.

For Queens, the situation looks to be “improving,” according to the report, with a high foreclosure rate of around 1.25 percent but decreasing caseload. At the beginning of 2013 Queens had 12,497 pending foreclosure cases and in the beginning of this year it saw 10,667, a decrease of 14.1 percent.

Juvie facility nixed

From the Times Ledger:

The plans for a juvenile group home proposed for a Jamaica Avenue site in Queens Village have been dropped by the city Administration Children’s Services after community members protested for months, elected officials announced Tuesday.

The former Merrick Academy school building on the corner of 207th Street and Jamaica Avenue would have become a group home for juvenile delinquents to transition into responsible young men while in a neighborhood environment through a state program administered by ACS.

Residents joined with elected officials and community leaders to stop the site plan through legal and social means and were elated to hear the news that the proposal for the group home had been canceled.

LIC: hotel or homeless shelter?

From Court Square Blog:

We were poking around the Department of Buildings website earlier this week and noticed that a new permit was pre-filed with the DOB on July 29, 2015, calling for an eight story-mixed used build, with 19,989 square feet of commercial space and 19,799 square feet of residential space for a FAR of 3.98.2 The occupancy classification on the permit calls for “HOTELS, DORMITORIES” and there will be 29 dwelling units. Based on a review of the permit, the owner appears to be Amsterdam Hospitality, which has ties to homeless shelter developer Alan Lapes.

Fewer people playing tennis

From New York Magazine:

The number of tennis players that pay fees to play on the city’s tennis courts has dropped by nearly 30 percent in recent years, city records show, a decrease so severe and unexpected that city officials are struggling to find a way to get all the lost players back.

According to Parks Department financial records, obtained by New York, the most significant drop in participation has been among players who purchase seasonal permits. Over the past four years the number of adults who purchase these passes has decreased by 43 percent. The primary reason for the drop, officials believe, is a controversial price increase in 2010. Back then, city officials felt that $100 for seasonal permits was too low. Instead of raising prices incrementally, they doubled the cost of a seasonal permit to $200. The next year, the number of seasonal permits sold dropped from 12,416 to 7,411, and since then the number has hovered around 7,000.

The second biggest drop was among those purchasing single-play tickets, which are good for an hour’s worth of tennis. In 2010, the price for single-play tickets was $7, a bargain that inspired thousands to stock up on their passes. But after the price of single-play passes increased to $15, there was a 32 percent drop, from roughly 40,778 single passes sold in 2010 to about 27,831 in 2014.

Astoria Mountain being flattened

We have word from George the Atheist that the Berrian Blvd landfill which was proposed to become a park is in the process of being denuded of trees and bulldozed.

Huntley owes big bucks to the state

From the Daily News:

Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley, who was released from prison last year after serving time for corruption, is in trouble again.

Huntley, a Queens Democrat, owes nearly $751 in unpaid income taxes from 2012 to the state, officials confirmed. A tax warrant was issued by the state in December seeking to collect the money.

De Blasio enables never-ending welfare cycle

From City Journal:

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is proposing a full employment program for government-funded social-service workers. In the process, he will likely gut one of the most successful welfare-to-work initiatives in the country, and possibly return New York to its former status of America’s dependency capital, when one in seven New Yorkers were on the dole. The city’s gargantuan welfare agency, the Human Resources Administration, has just issued its “new vision for employment and education services.” Welfare users will no longer be expected to immediately look for and take a job in exchange for taxpayer support, an expectation that was the key breakthrough of welfare reform. Instead, welfare recipients will serve indefinitely as receptacles for an endless array of taxpayer-supported services.

Welfare applicants and recipients entering this complex new world of services will go through a three-tier assessment process. Those recipients deemed “fully employable” by HRA will get . . . not a job, but more services! They will be referred to off-site “contractor locations,” where the contractors will provide “in-depth assessments and direct clients to the proper set of services that are tailored to individualized strengths, interests, and needs.”

Does the “fully employable”welfare recipient now start looking for, or working in, a job? Not necessarily. According to HRA’s planners, “Individuals may then be referred to a combination of services,” which might include CareerBridge, a “new set of HRA contracted services for contextualized adult basic education, high school equivalency preparation, bridge training, English as a Second Language, and vocational training”; and CareerAdvance, “for clients who are job-ready, have high levels of skills/education, and/or others whose personal goals are immediate employment will be referred to CareerAdvance contractors to receive services.”

In a word, services.

Queens Blvd trains are going to be delayed

From the Daily News:

Starting Monday, commuters will have to book extra time during their morning and evening train rides on weekdays through Sept. 4.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is cutting back service on the E, F, M and R lines for maintenance work on the express track.

Speeds on E and F express trains will have to slow to 10 mph through work zones. Meanwhile, some E and F trains will run local, meaning fewer M and R trains on that track each hour.

LPC sues homeowner over building neglect

DNA Info/James Fanelli

From DNA Info:

The city is suing the owner of a dilapidated landmarked rowhouse in order to hammer home a message — fix it.

In a rare move, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Nina Justiniano to compel her to rehab her red-bricked home on historic Astor Row in Central Harlem.

The interior floors and walls of the 133-year-old three-story home have collapsed and most of the roof is missing after years of neglect.

The commission, which has only filed 13 lawsuits like this in the past 12 years, took the unusual step after repeatedly requesting the work since 2012. City law requires landmarked homes to remain in good repair.

The lawsuit asks a judge to fine Justiniano $5,000 a day until she renovates the home.

Short-term Rockaway transit solution?

From Rockaway Post:

It’s not cheap, and you have to get to the Howard Beach station first. But it is a fast connection, and the easiest way into Manhattan when the A train is out of service.

This could be an interim solution, to be used in emergency situations: extend the Rockaway Park shuttle to Howard Beach, and allow riders to connect to the AirTrain for a reduced fare. Making this happen requires very little other than the cooperation of the MTA and the Port Authority. What do you say, Governor Cuomo?

The latest from Northern Blvd

Some pretty interesting numbers for this project. And that's one huge ass community facility...

One business replaced by another in residential zone

It looks like World Financial Group has vacated the premises on Himrod Street which was featured in this July 2013 post and now Legacy Planning Solutions has moved in. And although WFG they claimed they were moving into these digs on Metropolitan Avenue, that has yet to happen.

Charles Park needs regular cleanup

Hi "Crappie, last week I was at Charles Park in Howard Beach and I saw a group of about 10 National Park Service workers with clip boards and cameras looking over the park. I was on the beach doing a cleanup of trash and they called me over to chat and take my picture. I proceeded to complain about all the trash and debris that accumulates on the beach and that there is no one who's job it is to keep it clean. Only for one summer they had a worker that would clean the beach each day but after Hurricane Sandy he was reassigned to the Jamaica Bay Nature Refuge.

I was told by one of the officials that they are looking for volunteer coordinator's to organize the community and would I like to be that person. I told them the job shouldn't be left to volunteers and that it should be the job of the NPS to keep the park clean. He said that there was nothing in the budget to hire a worker.

I then asked him that the NPS and NYC Park's was supposed to join up and help each other out with all the parkland NPS has and he said NYC Park's can't help they have more than they can handle. He also said many parks even Central Park depends on volunteers to help keep it clean.

My thoughts are that here in the USA there are many people out of work and we are spending billions on all kinds of projects and sending billions of dollars all over the world to nations that hate us and we can't even afford to clean a park in an affluent neighborhood like Howard Beach where families come to rest and relax.

Each day the tides bring in trash from boaters and what winds up in the sewage system. Each day fruits, vegetables and food is washed up from Hindu religious ceremonies. Each day people who fish and party leave behind beer bottles and trash. Just as the NPS has to clean the bathrooms and sweep the playground and empty the litter baskets they must clean the beach. Some of the debris on the beach includes sections of heavy boards from docks and have nails and bolts sticking out. They are a hazard for beach goers and to boaters if the debris is washed out with the tide.

I personally don't like to sit and see trash so I always like to cleanup my area and have taught my children to leave a park a little cleaner than you found it but this is a big dirty job that shouldn't be left to a few volunteers that will do periodic cleanups." - Rich

Mission: To catch a kinkajou

Cesar Castillo

From the Queens Chronicle:

A photographer made an unusual find near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge Center on Thursday: a tropical animal called a kinkajou lounging in a tree.

Not knowing what it was, lensman Cesar Castillo on Friday sent an email out to the birding community via the NYSBirds-L listserv, with a link to the photo he took and had posted to Flickr.

Later it was determined that it must be a kinkajou because olingos do not have prehensile tails — that is, tails that can be used for grasping things, such as food or tree branches.

The Queens Chronicle informed volunteer wildlife rescuers Cathy and Bobby Horvath of the discovery and forwarded Castillo’s photo to them. The Horvaths operate a service called WINORR, Wildlife in Need of Rescue and Rehabilitation, in North Massapequa, LI. Bobby Horvath is a firefighter with the FDNY, and the couple often takes in wild animals found in the city.

Cathy Horvath said the animal must have been dumped there, and that she and her husband would go check it out and determine how best to capture it. And she offered words of caution to anyone who might come across the kinkajou.

“They’re a little bit fresh,” she said. “If they’re not tame, they’re a little bit bitey. They look soft and cuddly, but they can mess you up.”

Subway grate sidewalk mess on Hillside Ave

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

I first came across this awful site (one of many) in Jamaica, although since this is on the north side of Hillside Avenue this is technically Jamaica Estates, way back in 2010, when I first moved to this god forsaken place and who knows how long it was like this before that. Fast forward to 2015 and this mess is even worse. At 175-01 Hillside Avenue right near Bank of America and a MTA bus stop, sits some kind of I do not even know what to call this crap. It sits above the MTA subway grate and I guess our wonderful low-class residents figure it is a big garbage can, since all kinds of garbage gets tossed here. Besides all the garbage the whole thing is falling apart.

An idea whose time has come?

From the NY Post:

Public urination has gotten so bad in San Francisco that the city has painted nine walls with a repellent paint that makes pee spray back on the offender.

It’s the latest effort to address a chronic problem in a city where the public works director calls himself Mr. Clean: Walls are coated with a clear, liquid repellent material that goes on much like paint. When the wall is hit with urine, the urine splashes back on a person’s shoes and pants.

Mohammed Nuru, director of San Francisco’s public works department, says offenders will need to make the mistake only once to get the idea.

“If you have to go,” he said, “go in the right place.”

Nuru got the idea from Germany, where walls in Hamburg’s St. Pauli quarter are painted with the material to encourage late-night beer drinkers to find a bathroom rather than an alleyway.

Weisbrod wants to change physical culture establishment law

From Crains:

All gyms, spas, martial-arts schools, massage studios and health clubs looking to set up shop in New York City must get something called a physical culture establishment permit, which was created in the late 1970s to stem the rise of seedy massage parlors in Times Square.

Today, however, that means companies hoping to expand quickly find themselves mired in red tape and lawyers' fees as they navigate the city's byzantine bureaucracy. The permits require companies to prove they will not have a negative effect on a neighborhood by divulging their business plans, filing applications with a host of agencies and answering questions at a series of public hearings, starting with the local community board.

On Nov. 8, 1978, Carl Weisbrod, then director of the Midtown Enforcement Project, testified before the City Planning Commission and urged it to adopt the permit, which would bring to an end a moratorium on new health establishments that had been in place for years. By excluding less-desirable businesses from the definition of a physical culture establishment—and then requiring the ones that did meet the requirements to be vetted by the Board of Standards and Appeals—he felt it would make it harder for illicit businesses to operate within the city's borders.

"Zoning has proved to be the most effective tool in closing down houses of prostitution masquerading as massage parlors," he was noted as saying in a commission report.

Now Mr. Weisbrod is head of the City Planning Commission and is taking another look at the law he helped create, spurred in part by a report from the Department of Small Business Services earlier this year that said the permits were needlessly burdensome and a hindrance to opening more health facilities (which the city could arguably use more of: More than half of adult New Yorkers are overweight or obese).

"Physical culture establishment permitting was very effective in addressing a problem that existed at the time," a City Planning spokeswoman said. "And consequently, we are working with our sister agencies to determine whether it should be eliminated or modified."

Inclusionary zoning won't actually create that much affordable housing

From Capital New York:

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday backed off his campaign estimate that mandatory inclusionary zoning would create 50,000 units of affordable housing.

Speaking at an unrelated press conference, the mayor simply said the policy — which he recently unveiled and will officially introduce for consideration next month — would be a "crucial building block" in his overall goal of building 80,000 affordable units and preserving another 120,000 over a decade.

"We are going to get to 200,000 units," he said. "Mandatory inclusionary zoning, if passed as we hope it will be, will be an important contributing figure. We'll be able to better hone that number in the process — the legislative process and the city planning process. But either way you slice it, we're getting to the grand total."

When he was running for mayor in 2013, he said such a policy would spur development of 50,000 units of affordable housing in eight years — a figure that was met with skepticism at the time.

Since then, an organization pushing for the plan, the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, has sharply reduced its own estimate of how many units it would create, from between 25,000 and 50,000 over eight years to 13,800, according to a recent report.

More left turn signals for safer streets

From the Daily News:

Drivers could get the green light for safer left turns under a bill Public Advocate Letitia James is introducing in the City Council Thursday.

James wants the city Department of Transportation to put dedicated left-turn signals on 100 intersections to prevent drivers from zipping into crosswalks crowded with pedestrians. Another bill from James would make the DOT put out quarterly reports identify problem intersections where drivers are striking pedestrians who have the right of way.

“By increasing the number of protected left turn signals at large intersections and taking a closer look at locations with chronic right-of-way violations, we can make Vision Zero a reality,” James said.