Saturday, April 9, 2022

Developer insists on building higher, raising the ire of Kew Gardens Hills community

 community Vleigh Place

 QNS

A large amount of Kew Gardens Hills residents tuned into a remote public hearing on land use to speak about a housing area being constructed in the lot bounded by Vleigh Place to the west, 78th Avenue to the south, the western boundary of Lot 1 to the east and 77th Road to the north.

Some within the community voiced their support for the project while others expressed their displeasure and concerns about how it may cause more harm than good.

Under the current proposal, the housing area would be six stories tall, contain 80-90 units, with 27 of them acting as income-restricted units and take up around 124,380 square feet for the total floor area. Each tenant would receive a parking spot in the parking garage underneath the building.

According to Jay Goldstein, who was at the meeting on behalf of the developer trying to get the housing area built, the original proposal called for an eight-story building with 119 units.

Managing director of environmental engineering Kevin Williams was tasked by the developer with studying the traffic patterns of the area to determine how the building may impact the community. While he spent a lot of time doing so, Williams emphasized that he does not live in the neighborhood and acknowledged the community’s concerns. According to Williams, the traffic flow “is relatively modest in comparison to many other projects I work throughout the city.”

Despite Williams’ results, one of the common complaints by community members was that traffic in the area was already really bad and adding so many more people to the neighborhood at once would only make things worse.

“We are overpopulated already,” said Alan Sherman, who has resided in Kew Gardens Hills since 1974. “There are already too many cars and too many people.”

The concern among the community about the potential increase in traffic also led many to point out the fact that this building would be across the street from Stepping Stone Day School. In addition to the fact many children would be walking around the area and creating more traffic, some expressed concern about what the harmful carbon emissions from the cars in traffic could do to these kids.

 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

They just want to build build build without understanding the consequences of it. They overburden garbage pickup, crowd schools and we are still trying to pull out of covid crap. Nyc needs to stop with all this madness of building and focus more on deporting illegals and locking up the mentally challenged who roam our streets. Once you start deporting the garbage, you will get more room available and then maybe actual citizens can actually start living here without fears of so many gang members and shit people all over the place.

Anonymous said...

But he does not raise the ire of any politician so it does not matter.

Anonymous said...

Is these part of the New Green Deal ?

Anonymous said...

Call in the Land Protectors !

Anonymous said...

Bring back the Q74, so Vleigh Place can handle that many new commuters!

Anonymous said...

Ire, what Ire! New Yorker's are lap dogs to the democrat party.

Anonymous said...

Stop this fuck!

Anonymous said...

It's the free market economy at work.