Board 7 and Avella convince owner to adjust variance

Owner agrees to demolish a portion of a garage in order to build a two-story expansion. The owner of a two-story single-family home with a detached garage at 7-12 126th Street sought a variance from rear yard requirements to facilitate construction of a two-story addition. The 1935 home is located in a portion of College Point that the City rezoned from R3-2 to R2A in 2005. 2 CityLand 135 (Oct. 15, 2005).

The owner claimed … <Read More>


BSA approves variance at RKO Keith Flushing Theater site

Developer gets variance to build a 200-unit, mixed-use development on site occupied by historic theater. Boymelgreen Developers, owner of two lots located at the intersection of Northern Boulevard and Main Street in Flushing, Queens, totaling 41,880 square feet, sought to construct a 200-unit, seventeen- story, mixed-use building with accessory parking. The building will be constructed on two currently improved lots. The first lot contains a two-story commercial building that will be demolished. The second lot … <Read More>


Queens neighborhoods down-zoned

Whitestone Rezoning and Whitestone Locator Map. Used with permission of the New York City Department of City Planning. All rights reserved

Council approves new lower density and contextual zoning to preserve the existing neighborhood scale. On December 21, 2005, the City Council approved the Planning Department’s rezoning plan for 311 blocks located in the Whitestone, Beechhurst and Robinwood neighborhoods of Queens. The rezoned area is bounded by the Whitestone Expressway to the west, the Clearview … <Read More>


Community Board members may vote on large area rezonings

Community Board members sought advice from Conflicts of Interest Board. Nine members of Community Board 7 in Queens sought an opinion from the Conflicts of Interest Board as to whether they could vote on the Planning Department’s 310-block rezoning proposal for Whitestone, Queens in light of their home ownership in the proposed rezoning area.

The Board advised that voting on rezoning proposals would not violate the Charter’s conflicts of interest rules as long as the … <Read More>


Developer withdraws variance requests after rezoning

Developer sought variance to build additional 2-family home in flood zone. The developer of three lots located on 130th Street in College Point, Queens, applied to BSA for a variance to construct three, two-family homes on property formerly occupied by the Ariel Rowing and Tennis Club. The developer’s applications represented that a hardship existed due to the lots’ location within a flood zone, which would require that the buildings be constructed on piles and without … <Read More>


College Point rezoned to protect residential areas

Queens down-zoning covering 161 blocks was designed by City Planning. Increasing demolition of small single-family and detached buildings for new, large apartment developments had concerned the College Point community and Community Board 7. Borough President Helen Marshall’s zoning task force and the community urged the Planning Department to commence a comprehensive down-zoning to protect its smaller residential character and to analyze the broad areas remaining zoned for manufacturing.

Finding that over two-thirds of the lots … <Read More>