Death of Parking in Queens Plaza, Long Island City

Oh Gotham Center, you’ve made our headlines twice this week! First it’s because the NY Public Health Dept is moving into the bottom 11 floors of your building, and now it’s because there seems to be an issue creating those pesky public parking spots Queens Plaza was supposed to get because of you…

Hot off the presses from our favorite local community board, CB2, is the public hearing notice (tomorrow) for Gotham Center’s developer’s request to create just a few less public parking spaces than they had agreed to when granted approval to build their looming tower in Queens Plaza. (One of three towers, mind you.) Ok, we’ll give you the numbers now… Tishman-Speyer (developers) agreed to create 1,150 public parking spots when they acquired the then city-owned property, a municipal parking garage dubbed the ‘white elephant’, to create their mega-complex Gotham Center. They are back now in front of CB2 asking if they could amend that number to »

Hunters Point South, Long Island City

Last night Community Board 2 held a public hearing at St. Mary’s Church in Long Island City regarding the 49th Ave traffic changes and the Hunters Point South “Open Space” project. A liQcity reader emailed us some quick details from the hearing:

“CB2′s public hearing yesterday started with a discussion about 49th Ave between 5th St & Vernon Blvd. DOT [Dept of Transportation] briefly presented how 49th Ave’s size and location cause it to fit their “one-way” conversion model. And, they did some kind of a ‘speed study’ and the average speed they clocked means the street fits their mandate for a speed hump, but they will only do it if CB2 votes for it.

The longer presentation and discussion was about the Hunters Point South open space »

Pulaski Bridge intersection, Hunters Point, Long Island City

Last night at the committee meeting regarding traffic and transportation in Long Island City (specifically Hunters Point), the DOT gave a presentation of their proposal to make the Jackson Ave & 11th St intersection a little bit safer for human beings to get across. The proposal includes »

5th Street parking to vanish like this view? -Long Island City

Ok Hunters Pointers, here’s your chance to get involved some good ol’ fashioned community politics (if you dare). On the table, the very controversial issue of neighborhood parking, specifically in the Vernon Jackson zone on Vernon, and also 11th Street. One possibility is increased metered parking on side streets near Vernon. (Hopefully also the DOT will address the dangerous intersection at Pulaski & Jackson Ave.) And parking also might be temporarily (permanently?) removed along the entire stretch of 5th street.

According to many but confirmed by none »

Long Island City’s Community Board 2 (which covers LIC south of the Queensboro Bridge only) seems to have a new website.

There’s a handy complaint form that is very self-explanatory. Slightly confusing »

Queens West remediation, Hunters Point, LIC

There seems to be some continuing issues with the toxic remediation of the remaining portion of the Queens West site at the Hunters Point waterfront. There’s been a growing number of complaints about petroleum-like odors emanating from the site and causing illness in the neighborhood. This week on Vernon Blvd, the fire department responded to suspected gas leak. None were found, and it was concluded that the callers had mistaken fumes from the nearby development sites (OCA as well) for the gas leak.

Joe Conley of CB2 and Paul Januszewski of Queens West Development Corp are requesting LIC residents to confirm the presence of odors/fumes emanating from the site, and/or any suspected related illnesses »