Community Board 3, gathering at a special meeting Thursday night, voted to draft letter to city officials formally opposing modifications that would allow for the construction of two apartment buildings on what is now the parking lot for the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott hotel in East Elmhurst.<\/p>\n
The final vote was 22-3.<\/p>\n
The property is located at 102-05 Ditmars Blvd. CB 3 Chairman Richard Mullings told members at the Langston Hughes Library in Corona that the special session was required after time constraints prevented a vote during the regular meeting on Sept. 17.<\/p>\n
ASAP LGA East Elmhurst LLC is proposing to construct two buildings with a combined 535 new units. A total of 98 would be set aside for affordable senior housing.<\/p>\n
There also would be ground floor commercial space, plus some designated community space.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what I\u2019d like to do before we have a vote is to have members of the community as well as members of the board have the opportunity to speak about this, addressing concerns and comments about this application,\u201d Board Chairman Richard Mullings said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many speakers were concerned that the project would require only a modification of regulations put in place in 1979 rather than a zoning change and a more stringent environmental review, thus blunting any input from the board.<\/p>\n
Others are angered by the fact that the project appears to have been in the works for about six years, but the board was only informed several weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe as a community are just finding out, trying to get together details\u201d said Marie Gayle. \u201cThat\u2019s disrespectful. I know people in Forest Hills, Bayside. And when they have a project coming in they know about it years before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank Taylor, president of the Ditmars Boulevard Block Association, a Board 3 member and its former chairman, echoed that sentiment, using Forest Hills and Whitestone as examples.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened in Black and brown communities … studies of the air, traffic and environment are incomplete,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWhen they came to this board, the said they were coming as a courtesy.\u201d He and Board member Danielle Horry reminded everyone of what homeowners had to go through with everything from traffic to damage to their homes\u2019 foundations during the recent reconstruction of LaGuardia Airport.<\/p>\n
Taylor also was one of many who said the area\u2019s infrastructure and services are not ready for us to 2,000 new residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now in East Elmhurst we have PS 329 that is at 150 percent of capacity,\u201d said Marlene Rossi. \u201cWe have PS 127 at 115 percent. We have special needs students We have a mandate for smaller class sizes. And we don\u2019t have the space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board member Arthur Teiler mentioned that the developers said there would be fewer than 100 schoolchildren living at the new site, though he expressed doubts as to how that could be guaranteed.<\/p>\n
Board member Celso Garcia and others questioned whether the designated affordable apartments would be within the price range of present-day residents.<\/p>\n
Taylor said the neighborhoods have only\u00a0NYC Health + Hospitals \/Elmhurst for more the 350,000 residents.<\/p>\n
Board member Ann Brown struck a similar chord on what critics contend are the area\u2019s already-overburdened infrastructure and services.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first question was \u2018Where was Con Edison?\u201d Brown said. \u201cWhere are all the other service providers saying they will provide resources and services?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said she was unpleasantly surprised this summer by brownouts when she was not operating air conditioners or doing laundry.<\/p>\n
She said in the past a family member was dependent on long sessions of dialysis, and that someone she knows relies on supplemental oxygen, both absolutely reliant on electricity.<\/p>\n
Brown also questions where construction workers, hotel employees and guests will park before the project and its promised parking spaces are completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will not enhance the neighborhood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThere are gaps in the studies, gaps in the information,\u201d Horry said. \u201cTo say there won\u2019t be a sewage problem(with 535 more residences), there has to be a problem. If you have a size 7 show and you jam a size 12 foot into it, the show is going to break. [The problem] isn\u2019t the housing. It\u2019s trying to shove 10 pounds of rice into a one-pound bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the plan had some defenders on the board.<\/p>\n
Mark Buhrmester questioned the board\u2019s commitment to new housing in general, saying this could be an opportunity to secure playgrounds and other amenities as part of a deal. He also cited a vote since he joined the board where it approved parking lot on land zoned for residential use.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see what we are for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Board member Bill Bruno questioned Mullings\u2019 and Taylor\u2019s assertions that the objection in this case is this particular project in this particular place, rather than housing projects in general.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we can address this, because we do have a housing shortage,\u201d he said, while acknowledging that he thinks ASAP Holdings mishandled the application process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record is clear \u2014 they should have come to us sooner,\u201d Bruno said. He also would like to close gaps in the documentation. \u201cI\u2019ll use the saying \u2018This was worse than a crime \u2014 it was blunder.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Nuala O\u2019Doherty was more direct.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a mother of three 20-somethings,\u201d O\u2019Doherty said. \u201cThey all live in our house. They have good-paying jobs. They want to stay in the neighborhood. And they can\u2019t because there is no housing. This board has not been for housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chronicle has reached out to attorney Adam Taubman, who represented ASAP Holdings at the Sept. 17 meeting, for comment on Thursday\u2019s proceedings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Community Board 3, gathering at a special meeting Thursday night, voted to draft letter to city officials formally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[36549,609,2907,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-357925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-community-board-3","tag-government","tag-housing","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357925","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=357925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}