Proposal To Build On Triangle Brings Board 2 Wrath
BY THOMAS COGAN

...the alterations application cases from Sunnyside Gardens that seem to come before the board each and every month are necessary to establish just what obtains there now that the Landmarks Preservation Commission has granted the neighborhood landmark status.

At the March meeting of Community Board 2, matters covered included an application for a dual street renaming, another bit of remodeling in Sunnyside Gardens that required board approval, a board member's retirement, a news report from the Department of Sanitation and sundry items. But the issue that stirred most interest was the application to the Board of Standards and Appeals for a variance from the requirements of a zoning regulation so a house could be constructed on 59th Street in Woodside, where 59th, 60th Street and 34th Avenue form a triangle. Several residents living near that triangle took exception to the plan and showed up at the meeting to denounce it, saying it would take away a plot of land they call their park.

The official language of the variance application speaks of wanting "to construct on an undersized triangular lot a two story single family residence" and also to "vary lot coverage… less than the required front yard…and less than the required side yards…in an R-5 zoning district". One of the protesting neighbors described it more tersely as a plan for "a less than standard house on a less than standard lot'. Other neighbors said that even though it falls short of the requirements for the single-family house mentioned in the application, the house, if built, would probably be infilled to accommodate several families. Tom Ryan of Woodside on the Move envisioned a four-family house that would reduce front and side yards to little or nothing and encroach on the sidewalks. Another man appeared to represent the sentiment of the community when he said that at one time he believed the plot to be city-owned because he saw workers attending to the trees growing there. Others said they had grown up in the neighborhood assuming that the triangle was their own space. Ryan said it has been considered a public space since the row houses on 59th and 60th Streets were completed in 1940. No representatives for Sano Construction or any other party on the builder's side attended the meeting. When the board had to vote on the variance application, the result was predictable. Following the land use committee's unanimous disapproval, the board voted to recommend rejection of the application, also unanimously.

"It's not a park," Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley said at the first time the triangle was thus described at the meeting; and the lot is privately, not municipally, owned. The owner has the right to build upon the lot, even if it means routing those who gather there on pleasant summer evenings to let their dogs run free, or felling the tree that rises perhaps 50 feet in the midst of it. The land use committee and the board recommended disapproval of the application for a zoning variance, without which the owner would have to build something smaller than a two-story single-family residence. That would effectively exclude housing. Armed with the board's vote, the local residents can proceed to the Bureau of Standards and Appeals hearing, scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 1, at BSA headquarters, 40 Rector Street in Manhattan.

A real park can be found just across the street on an adjacent triangle at Broadway, 59th Street and 34th Avenue. A tiny gem in the crown of the city's parks system, Quick Brown Fox Triangle has been at the site since William J. Gaynor was mayor in 1911.

Iggy Terranova from the Department of Sanitation delivered some news about graffiti removal and sidewalk clothing bins. He said that if graffiti is on your property it must be removed- and he described how tough the law is, if only on paper. First of all, you cannot decide that you like and tolerate the graffiti. It has to go. If you are notified to remove it, you must do so within 45 days or risk a fine of $450 per day. However, you can sign a waiver agreement, and Sanitation will remove the graffiti- but only when Sanitation Department personnel have the time. (Terranova boasted that the department can restore surfaces to pre-graffiti condition better than anyone else, so perhaps it's worth the wait.) As for sidewalk clothing bins, they are officially history. He said the City Council passed a law in October allowing Sanitation to post orange stickers on bins warning the owners to remove them within 30 days. After that, he said, Sanitation can take the clothing and send it to Goodwill, and can collapse the bin. No fines, but no bins are returned, either.

Lisa Deller of the land use committee said that the alterations application cases from Sunnyside Gardens that seem to come before the board each and every month are necessary to establish just what obtains there now that the Landmarks Preservation Commission has granted the neighborhood landmark status. The case that evening concerned the house at 39-16 44th St., whose owners put up a deck jutting into the Madison Court alley behind their back door. The LPC expressed its disapproval in 2006 and the owners were at the meeting with Laura Heim, an architect and preservationist, who brought a design for a deck to replace the current one. But would any deck be right in Madison Court? Steve Cooper of the board said that decks usually become an issue when they protrude into the courtyard spaces behind many of the neighborhood houses. In this instance, he argued, the deck stands in an alleyway with no residences on the other side of it. But the board was informed that at least one neighbor complained that the deck was intrusive. Deller said the land use committee voted four to one to reject the application. The board's roll call vote upheld the committee by 14 to eight. Later, Jean Carubia of the board announced that the American Institute of Architects had withdrawn its study of zoning texts, a study that aroused complaints at the November meeting and led to official rejection in a vote last month.

The application to give a dual name to 39th Place between 47th and 48th Avenues was an easy vote for the board. The man to be honored is Anthony Suraci, a community activist and head of Republicans of Western Queens, who lived in two homes on 39th Place over the course of 60 years. His son, Joseph Suraci, spoke in behalf of the application and thanked the board after it was approved unanimously. Honors within the board were bestowed on Patrick Murray, who has been a member for 15 years, and Ron Casey, who announced his retirement, eliciting several groans of disappointment. Casey said health concerns prompted him to step down, though he intends to remain connected to such bodies as the health committee. He has long been prominent in the cause of the homeless veterans at the Borden Avenue shelter and in the free hypodermic needle program of the AIDS Committee of Queens County (ACQC).