Could Dean be done?

From the Daily News:

Prosecutors investigating state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son have also been asking questions about the lobbying arm of the elder Skelos' law firm, the Daily News has learned.

A source who recently met with investigators for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara indicated that about half the questions focused on the lobbying arm of Ruskin Moscou Faltischek and if there was any direct or indirect interaction with Skelos.

Skelos, the Legislature's most powerful Republican, also makes up to $250,000 annually serving "of counsel" at the Long Island-based law firm. Skelos and the firm have long maintained that there is no interaction between the senator and the lobbying arm of the firm, headed by former Assemblyman Jerry Kremer.

Audit finds major problems at animal shelters

From NBC:

Operators of New York's animal shelters are administering expired drugs to dogs and cats, failing to maintain safe conditions and neglecting their financial records, according to an audit conducted by the city comptroller's office.

"Animal care and control is running an operation that could make your stomach turn," Comptroller Scott Stringer said Sunday in a news release. "We found expired drugs, harmful conditions and vaccines stored next to frozen remains."

Auditors examined conditions at animal shelters from March to November of last year. A records review revealed 499 occasions in which expired drugs were given to animals and that 92 bottles of expired drugs -- some as old as 13 years -- had not been removed from shelves, the auditors reported.

Animal Care & Control, a non-profit corporation, has a five-year, $51.9 million contract with the city to operate animal shelters in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island. It also operates animal receiving centers in the Bronx and Queens.

Melissa wants taxpayers to bail out criminals

From the Daily News:

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito wants to hand Get Out of Jail Free cards to criminal defendants — paid for not with Monopoly money, but with yours.

This is law-and-disorder lunacy on the public dime, gussied up as a way to drain the cesspool that is Rikers Island.

A proposed $1.4 million bail fund tops the City Council’s just-announced wish list for the $77 billion city budget.

The NYPD makes 260,000 misdemeanor arrests a year. Criminal Court judges release the vast majority of defendants on their own recognizance or on minimal bail.

In a small proportion of those cases — ranging from 5% in Staten Island to 10% in Queens — judges set bail beyond the reach of defendants. Annually, some 11,000 lack the money to post amounts ranging from $20 to $2,000.

The Council would post those payments in order to enable defendants to live in freedom while awaiting trial. Some chutzpah.

Judges set bail when defendants are deemed flight risks. Based on how few defendants are held, judges appear to be making considered judgments as to who’s least likely to show up in court.

Disrespectfully, your honors, the Council has decided it knows better than you how to determine who’s safe to free.

Brooklyn slumlords arrested

From the NY Times:

Two Brooklyn landlords accused by tenants of trying to drive them out by making their buildings uninhabitable have been arrested, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said Thursday.

The landlords, the brothers Joel and Aaron Israel, were scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Thursday morning. Prosecutors did not immediately disclose the charges, but planned to speak about them in the afternoon outside a building owned by Joel Israel, 98 Linden Street in Bushwick.

Longtime tenants in several buildings owned by the Israels have complained of hazardous conditions they believe are an effort to force them to leave, so their units could be rented out at much higher rates.

Prosecution of landlords on criminal charges is rare, but the case of 98 Linden was particularly egregious, law enforcement officials and tenant advocates said.

Bayside blocks near LIRR popular for parking

From the Times Ledger:

Matt Carmody, the director of transportation for VHB, presented “heat maps” during the public meeting, which displayed the utilization of parking on residential streets within a half mile radius of the LIRR Station on 41st Avenue, color coding the streets at different times of day.

The streets with a utilization rate at or above 85 percent were marked in red. And between 8 a.m. and the end of data collection at 7 p.m., the residential street map of Bayside was almost nothing but red.

There are 12 permit-only parking spaces in the DOT lot as well as 47 short-term (four-hour maximum) parking spaces and 33 available long-term (15-hour maximum) parking spaces.

In VHB’s findings, the municipal lot does not fill up until the afternoon, around 1 p.m. But once it is full, it stays full, because there are limited options at that point in the day for parking on residential streets.

One of the most attractive short-term solutions to those community members present at the public meeting was to introduce a parking permit system for employees and business owners offstreet and on side streets, which VHB consultants said might take away some of the cars now parked in meter spots.

Other more long-term solutions proposed include working with DOT to reconfigure and stripe on-street parking spaces and readjust meter rates for different times of day. Also, Sclair said the BID would look into ways to encourage a private entity to buy the municipal DOT lot from the city to build a parking garage further down the line.

Katz, Borough Board opposed to de Blasio zoning plan

QUEENS, NY - Queens Borough President Melinda Katz stated the following in response to questions about the preliminary proposal to eliminate or reduce parking spot requirements for any affordable and/or senior housing, as presented by the Department of City Planning to the Borough Board last night:

“Serious concerns were raised by the Queens Borough Board. In a transit desert like the borough of Queens, the reality for many families is having to rely on cars to get to work. For our seniors, we want them to maintain an independent, active quality of living for as long as possible. Our current mass transit system – including subways, buses and Access-A-Ride – is simply insufficient in reliability, frequency and reach to warrant stripping parking requirements. We share the goal of creating more affordable units, however, and we’re glad the city is coming up with outside-the-box ideas to reach this goal. We look forward to continuing discussions with the agency about alternative solutions for fair and smart growth.”

The preliminary proposal was one part of the Department of City Planning’s overall presentation about “Zoning for Quality and Affordability”.

City keeps driving jobs away

From the Daily News:

No amount of scrumptious dessert makes the news go down easier that Junior’s, maker of Brooklyn’s signature cheesecake, will soon shut its Queens bakery and reopen in New Jersey.

The move comes not because Junior’s is fading; its flagship restaurant beams brightly at the foot of Flatbush Ave. But the company, which churns out more than a million cheesecakes a year, cannot justify the cost of industrial real estate in the five boroughs.

Founded in 1950, Junior’s joins an exodus of established New York food-makers.

Streit’s, the venerable matzo baker still in its 1925 Lower East Side home, is decamping to Pennsylvania while pondering a move to Rockland or Westchester counties.

Hummus giant Sabra left Queens for Virginia.

Stella D’oro, whose heavenly scents once kissed the Deegan Expressway; Taystee, which moved its 400 Flushing baking jobs to Pennsylvania after fleecing the city for tax breaks; Bazzini, the Bronx firm that roasted Yankee Stadium’s nuts; and Old London Foods, a mighty maker of Melba toast, linger only in the sense-memories of New Yorkers.

Firms like those were canaries in the coal mine, lured away with the honey of tax breaks or repelled by the vinegar of union combat. Junior’s is the coal mine. That an employer of 60 felt it had no choice but to leave is a distressing sign of the city’s inability to retain middle-class jobs.

Among other forces, conversions of factories to living spaces — hello, Williamsburg and Long Island City — have helped drive the cost of manufacturing space out of reach.

Scary 911 situation for streets with 2 names

From DNA Info:

When Forest Hills resident James Freeley called 911 earlier this month because he suspected someone had broken into his car, the operator couldn't find his address.

Five minutes later, the dispatcher finally found Freeley's home on Puritan Avenue. That was only after he provided the nearest cross streets and the precinct he lives in, he said.

“If somebody was having a heart attack, taking five minutes to figure out where you were is a problem,” said Freeley, 72.

Mix-ups such as these are "a chronic issue citywide," including in Hamilton Beach, a small neighborhood near JFK that has had street names changed twice in the past couple of decades, said state Sen. Joseph Addabbo who represents the area.

The NYPD, which oversees the 911 dispatch system, could not immediately say how many similar incidents there have been. It was also not clear how many dual-named streets there are in the city.

In the Forest Hills case, the street was only logged in the 911 system as 75th Road. Puritan Avenue only applies to the portion of the street inside the private community of Forest Hills Gardens and the name has stood since the street was first created in 1909, according to Queens historian Michael Perlman.

A similar situation applies to busy 71st Avenue, which becomes Continental Avenue in Forest Hills Gardens.

At these prices, can anyone afford Queens anymore?

From Brick Underground:

Wondering how much you need to make to live — and rent — in your favorite borough? We're here to help. The data below is based on the March 2015 rental market reports for Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, which were recently released.

Assuming that landlords require you to have 40 times the monthly rent (or you get a guarantor who makes 80 times or hire one), here's what your salary (or yours and any roommates/partners combined) will have to be, according to the new numbers.

QUEENS:
To live in a studio, you'll have to make $98,720. (Median: $2,468)
​To live in a one-bedroom, you'll have to make $118,280. (Median: $2,957)
To live in a two-bedroom, you'll have to make $151,600. (Median: $3,790)
To live in a three-plus-bedroom, you'll have to make $220,000. (Median: $5,5,00)

Judge questions developers' sweetheart Willets Point deal

From the Daily News:

A judge for a state appeals court questioned the city’s plan to build a mega-mall on parkland in Queens, raising a concern that developers were getting an overly sweet deal.

Officials helped win over the City Council for the $3 billion Willets Point development in 2013 — which is slated to include a 1.4 million-square-foot shopping mall and a hotel near Citi Field — by upping the amount of affordable housing included in the project.

But one of the appellate panel’s judges said Wednesday she feared the relatively modest $35 million penalty that developers would incur if they don’t build the housing isn’t enough to see it through.

She said she was concerned that the deal could be a “win-win for developers and owners of malls.”

“We have a lot of those,” the judge said.

Dedicated bus lane plan sent to the circular file

From the Queens Courier:

Facing community and political opposition, the MTA and the city Department of Transportation slammed the brakes on a proposed dedicated bus lane for the limited Q44 bus line on Main Street in Kew Gardens Hills.

The news came during Wednesday night’s meeting of the Kew Gardens Hills Civic Association. The MTA planned to take one lane in each direction of Main Street to convert the Q44 between Flushing and Jamaica into a Select Bus Service (SBS) route.

Civic leaders and elected officials protested the plans previously, claiming the lost lane of traffic would increase vehicular traffic on Main Street while also depriving both residents and shoppers of valued parking space.

The Queens Chronicle thinks the Woodhaven Blvd SBS plan should also be nixed.

Borough Hall parking garage will soon be demolished

From the Forum:

The Queens Borough Hall Municipal Garage remains on track for expedited demolition this spring, according to Borough President Melinda Katz.

In a recent meeting with Katz, representatives from Queens District Attorney Richard Brown’s office, and other agencies that would be affected by the work, city Department of Transportation officials also indicated that construction of a new 300-spot parking lot is still on schedule for the end of 2016.

Additionally, Katz noted that DOT has implemented mitigation efforts during the demolition and construction periods, including additional Police Department traffic agents at Queens Boulevard and 83rd Avenue; 38 new temporary angled parking spaces on 134th Street; and extended hours on meters at 25 spots along Queens Boulevard at 83rd Avenue.

Parks can't keep kids out of FMCP towers

From A Walk in the Park:

Four more teens were caught sneaking up into the Worlds Fair towers NYC Park Advocates has learned.

When Park Enforcement officers arrived this time they found the gate wide-open and the flimsy lock missing. The rusted metal door that leads to the deteriorated staircase was also wide open and the small lock was nowhere to be found.

"The locks magically disappeared," said an officer at the scene.

The kids from nearby Bowne High School made it as far as the first observation deck - 126 feet in the air - Tuesday afternoon at 3:00pm when officers surprised them.

PEP officers detain four teens 126 feet in the air one of the three Worlds Fair Astro Towers observational platforms.

"It's very dangerous up there," an officer said.

"One slip and it's all over.

The officer said one teen mentioned he saw photos people had taken on instagram from the site.

Two 15-year olds and 16-year old were given trespassing summons.

Another 16-year old, who had multiple ID's belonging to other people and a bank card belong to someone else, was arrested.

CB7 says no to mosque variance

Queens Tribune

From the Times Ledger:

Community Board 7 turned down an application for a mosque to be built on Parsons Boulevard and disapproved another by a manufacturer seeking to expand its facility in College Point.

The board unanimously denied an application by not-for-profit Masjid-e-Noor to build a mosque at 46-05 Parsons Blvd. on the grounds that it did not fit the character of the neighborhood amid concerns about the building’s architectural integrity. The board tabled a vote on the proposal in January.

The issue is more than just the application not matching the character of the neighborhood, according to Chuck Apelian, CB 7’s first vice chairman.

Apelian said that more congregants would be attending the mosque than the group anticipates.

“There is great doubt and concern about the integrity of the presentation and the need of their program spaces for this site,” Apelian said.

Concerns included the group’s request for bulk waivers to exceed the maximum community facility floor area allowed in the property’s zoning district, which is designated for residential housing.

The developers also sought to change the mandated floor area ratio of 0.5 in the R2 district — zoned for single-family homes — to 1.045, cut down two trees and waive the yard and parking requirements to address the property’s irregular shape.

The property is an oddly shaped 4,773-square-foot corner lot, according to an Aug. 22 statement of facts and findings prepared for the city Board of Standards and Appeals by Simons & Wright. The group anticipated the mosque would serve about 420 worshipers, 95 percent of whom live in the mosque’s 11355 zip code.

Two floors would house the prayer rooms, one for 210 men and the other for 210 women because they pray separately. On weekends, the imam or the religious scholars would hold Quranic classes to teach roughly 100 students.

Board member Tyler Cassell, a member of the land use committee, said the committee voted to deny the application, but he proposed an alternative.

The Mormon Church on 144-27 Sanford Ave., whose site contains a six-story apartment building with 13,300 square feet and a parking lot for about 25 vehicles, is moving to a different site and could accommodate the mosque’s needs, Cassell said.

DEC may be reneging on Ridgewood Reservoir wetland designation

From the Queens Courier:

The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) appears to be moving away from possible wetland status for the Ridgewood Reservoir, according to the Community Board 5 (CB 5) Parks Committee.

For nearly five years, the board and environmentalists have pressed the DEC to declare the 55-acre site on the Brooklyn/Queens border in Glendale as a wetland. The declaration would recognize the sensitive ecology that formed in the reservoir since it was taken out of the city’s water system decades ago and grant the state authority to regulate its future use.

But CB 5 recently learned that DEC officials weren’t so sure that much of the Ridgewood Reservoir meets the criteria for wetland status.

According to Steve Fiedler, CB 5 Parks Committee chair, the DEC indicated that Basin 3, the westernmost and largest of the three reservoir chambers, did not meet the minimum qualifications for a wetland. In past years, the city planned to clear this basin and transform it into athletic fields and other active park space, but those plans were scrapped due to community opposition and financial constraints.

Basin 2, the center chamber which includes a large natural lake, did not meet acreage requirements under DEC wetland criteria, but Fielder said the agency would likely declare it a wetland due to “extraordinary community concern.”

Fielder added that DEC officials indicated they did not evaluate Basin 1, the smallest and easternmost chamber, because inspectors were unable to enter due to heavy vegetation along the basin walls.

This is an about face from previous correspondence:

Ridgewood Reservoir Response Letter by Christina Wilkinson

So de Blasio wants sports fields at the reservoir now?

Bad news for neighborhoods fighting illegal signs

From the Daily News:

A Washington Heights woman who was fined $11,000 for posting 300 flyers in her neighborhood to advertise her babysitting services will not have to pay the massive fee, a Manhattan judge has ruled.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten ruled that the city violated the constitutional rights of Yasmin Pujols, 45, by imposing such high fines.

Pujols, who does not speak English, said in court documents that she did not know the city’s administrative code forbids putting handbills, stickers or other printed material on city-owned structures.

So she attached her flyers to bus stop shelters, garbage bins, street light stanchions and other publicly-owned surfaces in the summer of 2011, only to receive 149 violation notices from Department of Sanitation inspectors.

Each violation with a $75 fine.

Wooten said the city violated the Eighth Amendment, which bars excessive fines.

Whitestone guy bought controversial property

From the Queens Courier:

Tim O’Sullivan paid $13.6 million at an auction on April 10 for the 6-acre site near at 150th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, which is zoned for smaller residential properties, and hopes to build two-story, single-family detached homes on the land. The property was previously known as the Cresthaven Country Club and was used for years by the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) as a summer day camp.

Residents and community leaders were planning to fight any development on the property that didn’t meet zoning, such as high-rises or other large properties, hoping to protect the character of the residential neighborhood.

O’Sullivan, who grew up in Whitestone, said he understands what the residents are feeling and wants to be on their side.

“We are looking forward to working with the community, state Sen. Tony Avella and our architect, Frank Petruso, to produce a development befitting this beautiful Whitestone neighborhood,” O’Sullivan said. “I grew up in Whitestone and I am happy to contribute to the neighborhood in a positive way.”

Avella calls on LPC to landmark Broadway-Flushing

Sen Avella Letter to Landmark B-F

REBNY's ridiculously deep pockets

From Capital New York:

Members of the Real Estate Board of New York and their firms gave $21.7 million in campaign contributions to state-level elections in the last cycle, accounting for more than 10 percent of the money that entered the campaign finance system.

This money, which represents only some of the political spending by New York’s real estate industry, crossed party lines and benefitted both the Republicans who control the State Senate and Governor Andrew Cuomo. According to Capital's analysis of political giving, Cuomo and his allied committees received the majority of donations from members of the real estate magnate.

Cuomo has previously pledged to reduce the influence of money in politics, but in his latest round of reform negotiations, he said one measure pushed by good-government groups—closing a “loophole” whereby the Board of Elections treats limited liability companies as individuals—was too controversial for discussion. The Board of Elections will reconsider its interpretation at a Thursday meeting.

And major issues for REBNY are expected to loom large for lawmakers when they reconvene later this month. It has strong positions on several issues sunsetting in June, including the 421a and J-51 tax abatement programs as well as rent control in New York City, which developers oppose expanding.

CB7 votes against College Point land deal

From the Queens Courier:

S&L Aerospace Metals LLC, located at 120-22 28th St. in Flushing, is looking to purchase two plots of land from the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). One plot of land is owned by the city and the other is owned by the EDC.

The debate on whether or not to recommend allowing the sale came about because, after an asphalt company, Cofire Asphalt Corp., acquired some of the land in a 2010 land swap, Cofire did not take proper care of the plot.

“The deal was they were going to clean it,” explained Chuck Apelian, first vice chairman of CB 7. “They were going to maintain the operations at the site…the stipulations were all part of the deed restriction. None of these took place.”

Even though the previous deal was not handled correctly, the board made it abundantly clear that they support S&L and their operation.

“I support S&L; they know it,” Apelian said. “I also explained to them why we did what we did and we think it is ultimately to the benefit of, not only the community, but to S&L and everybody that this gets done the right way.”

“We can’t approve a land sale of contaminated land that was supposed to be cleaned up five years ago,” he added.

While some members agreed with Apelian, others felt that recommending denying the sale would be punishing S&L for something they had no control over.