Courtesy of outerB

The Department of Transportation (DOT) is holding their second round of workshops to address Queens parking issues, especially fallout on ‘commuter’ neighborhoods in lieu of the pending congestion pricing plan.

If you care about parking in the hood, here’s the deets:

Tuesday, 1/29, 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:00. Citicorp Building, 1 Court Square Long Island City

A piece that no longer exists at 5pointz studios - photo by Barrybar

Queenswest has a $20M library in the works? The price tag seems a bit steep.

• Queens West May Soon Be Hitting the Books [Curbed]

• Residential parking permits in LIC? Well that’s one option. [Queens Chronicle]

• If you’re moving in to the Rockrose buildings, bring your goggles. [Queens Courier]

• Music events in LIC this weekend [licpop]

Development in Dutch Kills

Back in 2003, Dutch Kills residents feared the neighborhood was being overdeveloped and requested rezoning to encourage residential growth and downsize commercial development. Some forward thinking there. Flash to 2008 when there are so many hotels and new condo buildings in progress it’s impossible to count them all.

Amongst the community complaints: growing lack of parking, inappropriate commercial development, carelessness in handing out business permits, and overly high density in general. The city responded in agreement with Dutch Kills civic leaders, but have been slow to implement the rezoning, and commercial developers have still been snapping up development sites faster than you can say ‘Environmental Impact Study”, which is what is supposedly holding up the rezoning.

Of course »

It’s still V-day in Hunters Point.

Welcome back from President’s Day. At least this year it feels very well deserved.

• NYC Ferry Commuting Funded by the City?

• Um… a Senator got towed during a congestion plan meeting. [Streetsblog]

• Some good NYC real estate articles this morning. [A Fine Blog]

Looking South from Hunters Point, Long Island City

Nice chunk of LIC news today. Looks like those parking workshops actually listened to the people that showed up. In conjunction with the famous Congestion Charge Plan, the DOT (Dept of Transportation) is proposing a Residential Parking Permit plan for a few specific neighborhoods that could be adversely effected by parkers trying to avoid the charge. LIC is one of them of course. Though, if anyone has tried to park in Hunters Point between the hours of 6am and about 4/5pm, you know it’s impossible anyway, so those new drivers coming to park here are SOL. It will be nice though to have residential parking. All hoods in the RPP plan will be treated on a case-by-case basis involving determination by community boards etc.

It seems the allocation for the new library suddenly jumped from $20M: “…$40 million for the build-out of a new Library Services Center in Long Island City in Queens.”

Water Taxi Beach is feeling the heat before the summer begins. Urban retreat or community nuisance? Seems the board meeting controversy had more to do with the Waterfront Crabhouse upset about WTBeachers rowdily trying to use their bathrooms, but for those of us who live in the pathway from WTB to the subway… I’d say there’s definitely a community issue. Some solutions offered by WTB were to shorten hours on Sunday night and provide additional portable bathroom facilities.

• Residential parking permits for Long Island City? [Streetsblog]

• NY Public Library $1B plan includes Long Island City [Library Journal]

• Water Taxi Beach draws ire at local community board meeting [Queens Gazette]

• LICBDC gets update on Queenswest project [Queens Gazette]

• Review of Lucky Mojo’s [Daily News]

• Behind the scenes of Bjork’s ‘Wonderland’ screening [NY Sun]

• Third-generation magician’s factory makes wonders before your eyes [Daily News]

10-50 Jackson Ave getting shiny, Long Island City

So LIC’s approved for the Residential Parking Plan. One can only assume that this along with other key decisions about the logistical infrastructure of LIC lay in the hands of the Community Board.

Speaking of the somewhat elusive CB2, the CUNY building appeal will be addressed at the board meeting on Thursday, April 3rd at 7pm. An older post offers some information about the board.

While the Queenswest Library clean up continues, the Queens Library system is renovating its branch in LIC as well. So we’re getting a double dose of information, brainiacs be alerted.

An interesting statistic: ” In Long Island City, average apartment sales prices increased 44 percent compared to the same period last year [Jan 07-08]; Woodside saw a 32 percent rise and Elmhurst prices went up 15 percent.” -Queens Chronicle

• Long Island City approved for Residential Permit Parking plan [Times Ledger]

• Cleanup continues at Queenswest library site [Queens Chronicle]

• Queens Library in LIC system funded $400K for renovations [Queens Courier]

• Irish Center going strong in LIC [Queens Courier]

• Community service from Fresh Direct? [Earth Times]

• New York City Food Film festival at Water Taxi Beach this summer [NY Sun]

More bad news from the MTA. How surprising. Despite rising subway fairs and tolls, there seems to be very little money for the neglected ‘stepchild’ G-train.

Poor bastardized, outcasted G-train. You really could be the lifeline subway connection between two very important and vital boroughs in NYC. BK and QNS have definitely had their fair share of rivalry, but as more people continue to move out of Manhattan and into our more ‘spacious’ boroughs, and development kicks it up hundred of notches… the stronger the bond gets between the Kings and Queens.

Yes there are buses, but we all know it’s not the same »