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2 Dog Runs, Traffic Flow, Zoning Are Board 2 Issues |
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Written by Thomas Cogan, Queens Gazette
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Wednesday, 14 June 2006 |
There's nothing like the issue of a dog run to bring people out to a public meeting- but two dog runs? Add to that a serious street route controversy, a further report on housing on Queens Boulevard related to the Woodside/Maspeth zoning study and the imminent retirement of the district manager, and there's no reason to wonder why the June meeting of Community Board 2 ran long.
Dog Run I would be at Sherry Park, a bleak concrete enclosure on Queens Boulevard at the top of exit ramp 40 of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The park was closed some time ago, either because of repairs being made to the BQE or because it had become a hangout for drinkers and other disturbers of the peace, or for both reasons. Lately, several local dog owners had been using it as an ad hoc dog run and were looking to make the arrangement permanent. Two speakers opposed to that move wondered how the dog owners had managed to open and use a space that had been closed by the Sheriff's Department, or how they topped off the accomplishment by posting a sign on the park fence identifying the dog run. It transpired that the park had been opened for them, according to one advocate, Carol Brown, "through Helen Ho and the Parks Department," for whom Ho works. Despite that, the department issued a statement that the sign would be removed. The anti-dog run people said that owners and canine creatures had been loud late at night, and also that the dogs might present a hazard for local children. Speaking for the dog owners, Virginia Hahn, a local resident, said that she and other dog owners had cleaned trash and refuse from Sherry Park and set up a dog run there. For such hard work and dedication, she concluded, they should have an official dog run. She said the current hours of operation were 8 to10 a.m. and 4:30 to 8 p.m. each day. She contended it was an excellent use of a space that had "no other viable use". Carol Brown said the dog owners' group was about 20 in number and nearly all were strangers to each other until the cause of the dog run brought them together. The dog run would be small, perhaps 25 by 50 feet, but they would be glad to have it. They also pledged to keep it clean.
Dog Run II would be in a section of Torsney Park, located at Skillman Avenue and 43rd Street in Sunnyside. Speaking for it-emphatically-was a group called SUDS, or Sunnyside United Dog Society. It has existed for five years, and last year at a Board 2 meeting a SUDS member proposed building a dog run in Lou Lodati Playground, which adjoins Torsney Park. That idea was rejected because a dog run in a children's playground was considered undesirable. The area currently proposed as the dog run site is separated from the playground by a fence, and is also on a lower level. It would be much larger than the one at Sherry Park: SUDS said it would be about 25 by 90 feet and would be separated from the rest of Torsney Park by a 12-foot-high fence that the group would have built, perhaps with funds coming from the City Council and Councilmember Eric Gioia. Speakers seemed confident such funds would be forthcoming.
When the time came to move and vote on the dog runs, a motion for Sherry Park was hard to compose because of several impediments. For one thing, the Sheriff's Department has to make repairs on the site, and there was the question of just what city agency or agencies would be able to endorse the dog owners' proposal conclusively. The board tabled the matter, resolving to take it up again in September or later. The SUDS proposal for Torsney Park, on the other hand, was described by Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley as an "operating agreement" between that group and the Parks Department-one of many that Parks has made apropos of dog runs all over the city, according to David Bentham, speaking for the department at the meeting. Assuming the dog run's configuration could be set and the fence constructed around it, and SUDS or whatever governing group would agree to constant maintenance of the site, the board moved to accept the proposal. It was carried by a 34-6 vote.
Just west of the point where the Long Island Expressway and the BrooklynQueens Expressway cross, at an exit onto 51st Avenue from the BQE traffic intent on turning right is forced to go down five blocks to Greenpoint Avenue (a two-way thoroughfare), because four consecutive side streets, 40th Street, 39th Place and 39th and 38th Streets, are all marked one-way southbound into the service road that is 51st Avenue. About two blocks westward, the exit from the LIE comes onto 51st Avenue, between 39th Place and 39th Street. Several residents of those side streets, particularly 39th Place, were present at the meeting to protest the suggestion, written in a February letter from Queens Transportation Commissioner Connie Moran to Assemblymember Catherine Nolan, that 39th Place be converted to northbound between 51st and 50th Avenues. The letter reportedly stressed that 39th Street one block west of 39th Place remain one-way southbound between 50th and 51st Avenues despite the fact that it is built widely as a two-way street and is indeed two-way from 50th Avenue to Northern Boulevard, crossing Greenpoint Avenue, Queens Boulevard and the Sunnyside Long Island Rail Road Yards in the process. The 39th Place residents said that buses coming to the state school for the blind and disabled at 50-28 39th Pl. would still have to discharge passengers each morning, but under the new conditions would cause delay in what would surely be a heavy flow of northbound traffic. Additionally, they said, such a flow of traffic simply would be too much for 39th Place, a narrow residential street, and conditions would be far worse than they are with traffic going southbound along that street into 51st Avenue. Steve Massis, who owns an automobile repair garage at 39th Street and 50th Avenue, said that if the LIE exit on 51st Avenue were extended a block any driver on that exit who might want to turn northward would be forced to proceed to Greenpoint Avenue. That would obviate the concern of many (a concern that may have led to Commissioner Moran's suggestion that 39th Place be made a northbound street) that if 39th Street were made two-way between 50th and 51st Avenues, traffic going north coming off the LIE exit would immediately make a sharp cut to 39th Street, causing congestion (or worse) with 51st Avenue traffic either headed straight or intent on a righthand turn at 39th Street. The motion that was put up for a vote approved a two-way 39th Street, provided the DOT took up Massis' suggestion and built that one-block extension of the LIE exit ramp. The motion was passed unanimously.
Neil Gagliardi of the Department of City Planning was at the meeting to discuss the part of the recent Woodside/Maspeth zoning study concerned with housing on Queens Boulevard. As a result of the study, he reported, new residential buildings would have a floor area ratio, or FAR, of 3.75. It is generally assumed that buildings with that FAR would be at most six stories high. An incentive is being offered to developers: with inclusionary housing, the FAR could be raised to 5. This means that if developers included a portion of "affordable" housing in their buildings, the structures could go as high as eight stories. This incentive has been extended, so that if a developer renovates older housing within a half-mile radius, or about 10 blocks, of the easternmost site of planned housing, the developer may win a FAR 5 bonus for new buildings. The charge again arose that this was merely subsidized housing, which some called lowincome housing. Conley said that 421A tax credits subsidize all local housing anyway, and that "affordable" is code language for middle class status. He added that if every project on Queens Boulevard were built to the maximum, according to the incentive agreement, there would be a total of only 61 affordable units as a result. The motion to approve the incentive offer succeeded. Also succeeding was a motion to approve the application by a caf at 47-02 Vernon Blvd. to set up outside tables on 47th Avenue.
For the second straight month, the impending retirement of District Manager Dolores Rizzotto was noted with sadness- though not by the retiree, who is headed for Florida. In addition to praise from Conley and others, there was a tribute by Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, sent through her legislative aide, George Napolitano. It consisted of a certificate of merit and a flag that had flown over the Capitol in Washington before being presented to the honoree.
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