By Stella Roos<\/p>\n
At the far end of Far Rockaway, along the edge of Jamaica Bay, many of the neighborhood\u2019s historic clapboard houses are boarded up. A concrete crushing facility nearby blows dust clouds into the air. Sidewalks are regularly submerged during high tides.<\/p>\n
When a developer came to the city with a rezoning application last year for a seven-story apartment building at 14-10 Beach Channel Dr., a few blocks from the bay, local residents had some reservations, mostly because the lot is in a Hurricane Evacuation Zone 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe road around there can become like a river,\u201d said Felicia Johnson, district manager of Queens Community Board 14, which includes Far Rockaway. \u201cI\u2019m concerned.\u201d <\/p>\n
The developer, Sam Zirkiev, bought the plot of land that includes a car dealership, a school bus depot and a small church for $1.24 million in 2021. He wants to construct a brick-clad building with 118 units, most of which would be market-rate one-bedrooms. The proposal has been denounced at every community board meeting since it was first presented in September. The City Council is expected to vote on the plan in the coming weeks, according to city documents. The project will come before the Council\u2019s zoning subcommittee on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Dolores Orr, chair of the local community board, pointed out that developers are not required to inform new tenants that they are moving into a Hurricane Evacuation Zone 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are moving to areas that could result in them getting injured, or killed, and they don\u2019t even know it,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s criminal.\u201d <\/p>\n
Orr also said she was concerned about the development\u2019s proximity to an open-air construction debris recycling plant down the road, which the community board chair said was overlooked by a consultant who conducted an environmental review for the developer.<\/p>\n
Versions of the conflict on Beach Channel Drive are playing out across New York City, as the government\u2018s drive to build housing runs up against economic and environmental realities. Just in Far Rockaway, an area highly vulnerable to natural disasters, over 7,000 new homes are in the works. The development has been supported by the city, in line with former Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 \u201cCity of Yes\u201d zoning reform. <\/p>\n
The local community board has passed a non-binding moratorium on new construction in the area, arguing the city is not providing the necessary expansion of transit, schools and hospitals, resiliency infrastructure, or even \u2013 over a decade after Hurricane Sandy \u2013 an evacuation plan. <\/p>\n
The developer has promised that the building would include retail space for a fresh food store in the neighborhood, which is a federally designated food desert. But John Cori, head of the Housing and Land Use Committee on the community board, said there was plenty of new commercial space in the area already, most of it standing empty. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard this all before,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Through his lawyer, Zirkiev declined to comment. <\/p>\n
The community board\u2019s opinion on rezoning applications is advisory, but developers will soon only have to go through the motions of seeking local support.<\/p>\n
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards greenlit the development in November, making final approval all but assured. <\/p>\n
The project has also gotten the ambivalent support of those already at the address. <\/p>\n
The Glory Light Tabernacle Episcopal Church organizes Sunday services in a worn, one-story building that abuts the school bus depot. They have been promised a larger, dedicated space in the new development. <\/p>\n
Pastor Dellon Hall, the son of the bishop at the church, said that the project has divided his parishioners. Some have raised concerns about the proposal, including the lack of larger, affordable apartments, while others believe it will be an improvement overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cFar Rockaway has been overlooked for many years,\u201d said Hall. \u201cClearly it\u2019s not ideal, but probably it\u2019s the best we can hope to get.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Stella Roos At the far end of Far Rockaway, along the edge of Jamaica Bay, many of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-121538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}