Saturday, November 24, 2007

Fabianville

The before shot.





This is sandwiched between the Metro Mall in Middle Village and the LIRR freight tracks.

How many? Dunno. Too many to count.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did this happen? Are they complying with the zoning?

The ovedevelopment in Middle Village is out of control. I bet they sit empty. They look like crap so far.

Better be built extra nice to be sold Mr. Developer.

Anonymous said...

Rumor has it the developer told Pinky he was going to construct a senior community room so the old biddies could play bridge, knit, and clean dentures. Pinky got a woody.

verdi said...

This sort of shit makes "Council Housing".....
government built public housing
in Great Britain... look great !
(And that looks like crap. I've personally seen it) !

Anonymous said...

So why don't the neighbors write/speak at the community board, write/speak everytime a local pol shows up for a press release, and write/speak to the newspapers.

Then let Crappy know what happens.

Everytime they meet, every time they show their face in public, we need someone to call out and ask these embaressing questions.

Everytime.

Anonymous said...

What was that land used for before these buildings were built?

Queens Crapper said...

It was open space.

Anonymous said...

What a quick response to my crap alert from yesterday!

Queens Crapper said...

I actually had that one ready for awhile and was going to post it during the week sometime, but since it was mentioned, I figured why not just do it today?

Anonymous said...

Anyone know the going price on one of these units? I mean, the backyard view of the mall parking lot, the frontyard view of Admiral Avenue and trains switching on the Bushwick Branch all night long must command a great price!

Anonymous said...

Can you say Section 8?

Anonymous said...

These houses don't look like crap. Maybe there are too many, but they don't look bad. I can understand the argument that they should build one-family houses instead of three-family, but what is wrong with building houses on empty space?

Anonymous said...

You're kidding, right? We had flooding because all of our empty space has been paved over. There is something wrong with building on empty space. Let the ground soak up the rain. And these are some butt ugly houses. Maybe your tastes are different. I'm sure the developer would love to hear from you.

Anonymous said...

These are Fedders Specials. You can put lipstick on a pig...

Anonymous said...

Middle Village and Maspeth have had flooding problems for over 30 years. I know, because I have been here that long and I remember. My family has lived in Middle Village since the 1950s and remembers flooding problems from back then. You have nothing to actually prove that "paving" has been the cause of flooding in recent years. Conclusory statements don't carry much weight if you don't have actual facts to back them.

Anonymous said...

Fabian has raped this community almost as much as Gallagher.

Queens Crapper said...

Actually, I didn't make it up, the Department of City Planning recently introduced green requirements for residential yards and commercial parking lots in response to the flooding, which was determined by the Department of Environmental Protection to have been caused by overpaving and overbuilding.

Anonymous said...

and even if flooding has been an ongoing problem since back in the 50's that doesn't mean it can't be eliminated, yet, by investment in adequate drainage systems and zero tolerance of excessive paving, which absolutely does cause flooding, giving rain water no place to go but into people's basements.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen anything from the DEP that said flooding is caused by "overpaving and overbuilding." The DCP release on the proposed zoning changes gives three goals: to improve aesthetics, reduce stormwater run-off, and reduce heat. It doesn't relate to building new houses on empty lots. I agree that these new houses should have some greenspace in front of them.
If the recent flooding is the result of paving and development, then why did we have the same flooding problems 30 and 40 years ago? The way to reduce flooding is to improve our sewer system, not to end new development.

Queens Crapper said...

I haven't seen anything from the DEP that said flooding is caused by "overpaving and overbuilding."

"When the sewers were built, they were built with the expectation that there wouldn't be the level of development that is there now," said DEP spokesman Michael Saucier.

See: Queens Machine Blames Overdevelopment

"The DCP release on the proposed zoning changes gives three goals: to improve aesthetics, reduce stormwater run-off..."

Stormwater runoff is one of the main causes of flooding. It also doesn't make sense to overbuild areas that were once swampland. Middle Village was marshy and that's probably why you have had flooding there for 30 years.

Anonymous said...

I drove past that site the other day.
I remember that spot just being fenced in and a lot of garbage and junk thrown into it and the local kids using it as a short cut to the (so-called) mall and frieght tracks.
What would everyone have preferred that area become? Being that it was an abandoned rundown lot before.

Queens Crapper said...

How about a park or community garden? The city used to own it and the neighbors would have gladly cleaned it up. That would have been sort of restitution for allowing it to be a dump for all those years. Instead, they sold taxpayer-owned land to a developer for next to nothing so that more crap could be built and the community lost out again.

Anonymous said...

Based on your picture, it might not be a good spot for a park. It is inaccessible from two of the three sides, and directly adjacent to a shopping a shopping parking lot and a railroad. I'm not sure how much use it would have.

Queens Crapper said...

In Brooklyn, there is a park at the waterfront with an entrance through a Home Depot parking lot. Home Depot welcomes patrons to park in their lot. The Metro Mall can do the same. Besides, community gardens throughout the city have sprung up in less likely places.

Anonymous said...

the decision about what to do with the land might've been left up to residents in the neighborhood, or at least feedback from them might've been obtained, "as restitution for having to put up with its being a dump."

Now they're stuck with a dump of a different sort.

Anonymous said...

I understand your concerns about adequate sewage to deal with flooding, but as for park land - never once in all my years that I have lived in the neighborhood have I heard anyone ever utter a peep about that lot turning into a park. The small community around Admiral Avenue had decades to do something about it if they wanted to.
That housing development (which although massive is better quality than most that have gone up in the neighborhood) is ten times better than a lot strewn with garbage and and a view of a brick wall and freight tracks.
Face it, the city needs housing. Everyone keeps talking about how they want middle income housing and I will tell you that the window fixtures in that development are by no means cheap, and not meant for 'section 8' housing.
I know we all want more single family homes but we live in the most populated city in the U.S.
Sometimes you just have to deal.

Anonymous said...

"the window fixtures in that development are by no means cheap, and not meant for 'section 8' housing."

He's right. Certainly a higher class will want to live with the perfume of diesel trains on one end and the view of an expansive parking lot out the other. Someone will buy these, and then rent them out to section 8, including in illegal conversions in the basement. It's happening all over better parts of Middle Village already.

Anonymous said...

Come on folks - flooding in this area has been going on for 30 years? Where have you been, tolerating flooding in your basements - silent critics getting wet all these years.......Get off your butts call your representatives do something about it! Building crap in every nook and cranny left, like this hell hole makes the flooding worse for everyone. Paved over front and back yards also add to the problem. Don't buy a house if you can't or won't maintain greenery. These properties will be bought by investors to rent out, in other words transient folks whom have little stake in the areas well being. Who else would live next to a caddy corner atop a fuming mall parking lot and railroad tracks that have in the past had serious accidents? The city encourages this crap cramped delevelopment. We get overcrowed streets, less parking, increased crime, overtaxed transportation,sanitation, firefghting and policing. The city is turning our area into the new barrios of tomarrow. This development must be halted at all cost - worse to come I fear as a result of this Crap development.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen anything from the DEP that said flooding is caused by "overpaving and overbuilding."

I would not hold my breath listening to anything the DEP spews out. If flooding is not caused by overpaving and overbuilding (they are) then the illegal apartments and doubling and tripling of folks squeezed into existing dwellings are to blame.

Do the math - if 4 folks poop vs 1 person in a dwelling previously - then all this activity takes a toll on the sewer infrastructure. As soon as it rains, the runoff is competing with that much more flushing activity, without upgrading the sewer infrastructure.

This like crime, garbage, schools, transportation, quality of life is completly overwelmed by construction of these ugly, poorly located new buildings for sale. I predict, unless they are slashed in price by 50-75% via default they will not be bought by anyone. After the bank recoups these properties - section 8 clients will fill these apartments - no question.