NEWS: Follow-up with CB 2 on the LPC Sunnyside community meeting
From the Western Queens Gazette – this is why local papers are great; not only do they highlight what’s really happening in a community; they do follow-up!
Board 2 Meets New 108th Precinct Commander
BY THOMAS COGAN
The December meeting of Community Board 2 was an opportunity for Captain Tom Kavanagh, the new commander of the 108th Police Precinct, to make an introductory appearance. The late November meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission concerning the status of Sunnyside Gardens was reviewed, there was some good news from Newtown Creek and the sidewalks of Woodside and an update on the needle exchange program in Long Island City.
The board members who went back over the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting on Sunnyside Gardens, held a week and a day earlier, seemed to believe that the LPC’s determination to conclude all inquiries and get landmark status applied to the neighborhood in the next few months was justified. The doubts and hesitancy that some attendees at that meeting expressed puzzled them; they felt the landmark issue has been debated long enough. But the feasibility of regulating and enforcing building and grounds standards made them wonder also. Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley asked if enforcement could be real, and Steve Cooper, vice chairman, Sunnyside resident and the person reporting about the meeting, said that it certainly could; as an attorney he has counseled clients in enforcement cases in Douglaston. Making her report from the Department of City Planning, Penny Lee said her department would be conferring with Landmarks soon to see how zoning would be affected in Sunnyside. She said she was not currently well informed on the landmarks process but should know more about it after meeting the LPC.
Penny Lee, in her City Planning report, also spoke of the connection that is supposed to be made between the Court Square subway station and the 45th Road elevated station, a stop on the No. 7 line. The plan was to make the connection in conjunction with the construction of the second Citibank building, now nearing completion. The operation has been stalled by engineering complications, which exclude the possibility of using the stairway that leads from the street to the 45th Road station as a means of constructing the connection.
The public comment segment of the meeting provided good news at last about the sidewalks under the railway trestles on 57th and 58th Streets and 39th Avenue in Woodside. Jim Condes, who has pursued the issue of the broken sidewalks tirelessly, said that at last the Department of Transportation did the right thing and made the repairs. His fellow protestor, Vito Rak, agreed that the sidewalk repair was a good job, but lighting remains inadequate.