By Alexander Dworkowitz
After a heated discussion Monday evening, Community Board 7 rejected a plan to add more apartments to a half-completed waterfront development in College Point.
The board voted 26-8 against a variance sought by Edgewater Development Inc. for Edgewater Estates, the luxury housing complex taking shape off the intersection of 115th Street and 9th Avenue.
Twenty-eight of the 55 planned units of housing for Taipei Court, the southern half of the complex, sit along the East River and fall within a manufacturing zone.
In order to complete the construction, the company has applied for a variance.
“The site is a highly unusual site, where the zoning doesn’t make sense,” said the developer’s attorney, Adam Rothkrug.
The 62 units of the northern portion of the complex, Dalian Court, have already been built, and residents were expected to begin moving in about a month. Taipei and Dalian courts are separated by a canal emptying into the East River.
With each three-story unit designed for two families, 234 families are slated to live in Edgewater. The complex would have about 1.5 parking spaces per family, Rothkrug said.
The population influx has angered many College Point residents, who say the peninsula’s narrow streets and two public schools cannot handle more people.
Deborah Auletta, who grew up on 115th Street, worried that the development did not have enough parking spaces and said cars would spill over onto the surrounding streets.
“The parking is not there,” she said. “The street is narrow.”
Joan Vogt, executive director of the Northeastern Queens Natural and Historical Preserve Commission, read a letter on behalf of state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose).
The “assurance of access to the shoreline has been abandoned in northeast Queens, having been buried beneath lots of fill and further plans for overdevelopment,” Padavan wrote.
In his letter, Padavan also charged that a bridge over the canal connecting Dalian and Taipei courts had not received approval from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and that its construction damaged wetlands.
In its application, Edgewater offered a “deal” to the city and local residents. In exchange for the city’s granting of the variance, the company promised not to build 10 units at the edge of its canal and instead construct a 30,000-square-foot public park.
Frank Macchio, the third chairman of the board and a College Point resident, said the developer’s promise to build a public park along the water made the plan acceptable.
Fred Mazzarello, president of the College Point Board of Trade, also spoke in favor of the proposal.
“The development now becomes part of our community,” he said. “We can’t treat it separately.”
Mazzarello was concerned that allowing manufacturing instead of housing would disturb the Edgewater residents.
“I’d rather have the extra houses,” he said.
The decision to grant a variance ultimately rests with the city Board of Standards and Appeals.
The board also unanimously voted to approve naming a Bay Terrace street for the U.S. Army.
The board recommended that the City Council place a sign at Bell Boulevard and 212th Street reading “100th Infantry Division Boulevard.”
Based in Fort Totten, the 100th Infantry Division served bravely during World War II, said Sam Resnick, a member of the division who pushed for the sign change.
“We’re not looking to rename a street for one of our heroes, but to name it for a whole division of our heroes.”
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 1-718-229-0300 Ext. 141.
