N E W S APRIL 10 L E H A V R E FULL STOP Four-way stop installed near school HUD grants not enough say co-op, condo owners 10 LEHAVRE COURIER | APRIL 2013 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM BY MELISSA CHAN A dicey intersection near a Whitestone elementary school just got a little safer. The city installed a four-way stop on 154th Street at the intersection of 11th Avenue after residents petitioned for more controls. The accident-prone school crossing is half a block away from P.S. 193. “This has been a problem location going back to my days in the City Council, and the community has been very vocal on the need for additional traffi c controls at this location for years,” said State Senator Tony Avella. “Ensuring the safety of our children as they go to school should be one of our top traffi c priorities.” Before the change, there were only two stop signs for vehicles going east and westbound. Residents said cars constantly parked illegally in a “No Standing” zone impaired the vision of drivers trying to go straight on 11th Avenue or make a right turn, The Courier reported last September. Having to slowly inch up halfway into the intersection, they said, makes them sitting ducks for speeding cars zooming down 154th Street. There were no reported injuries at the location between 2006 and 2010, said a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT). There was only one crash in 1996, which resulted in one injury, according to crashstat. org. But Devon O’Connor, president of the Welcome to Whitestone Civic Association, said he witnessed at least four collisions there last summer. The intersection, he said, has been a problem for over a decade. Support for the traffi c controls came from the school, parents, elected officials and Community Board 7, O’Connor said. “It’s definitely going to reduce speeding and car crashes,” he said. “I stood there for a while watching the intersection with the new stop signs. You can defi nitely tell it’s a whole different vibe.” BY MELISSA CHAN Co-ops and condos damaged by Sandy are now eligible for federal housing grants. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it will allow co-ops and condos to receive funding from Community Development Block Grants Disaster Recovery grants to help with repairs. “We have finally cleared a bureaucratic hurdle that prevented thousands of homeowners in New York City and Long Island from getting the help they needed,” said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. “We have always said that condos and co-ops should be eligible for the same assistance as single family homes, and now they are.” But leaders and local co-op presidents said the fix is just a temporary one. The root of the problem, they said, is still not addressed. “This is a good first step. There’s no question about it. But it’s a band-aid fix,” said Bob Friedrich, president of Glen Oaks Village Owners. “This still discriminates against families of co-op apartments.” Co-op and condo owners currently cannot receive Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants for Sandy-inflicted damages because they are categorized as “business associations.” The title makes them eligible for federal loans but not grants. The Stafford Act, which governs how FEMA responds to major disasters, does not include the word “co-op” in the law, according to Congressmember Steve Israel. But there is no statute that purposefully bans co-op owners from being eligible for grants, a privilege given to homeowners. “What we need is a permanent fix to how FEMA classifies co-ops and condos,” Israel said. “This is an interim solution that allows co-ops to access certain federal grants. But until FEMA changes the definition of co-ops, disaster assistance won’t be a sure thing.” Co-op and condo owners will now have to battle it out with other retail developments, towns, villages and cities for the competitive grant, leaders said. HUD allocated $5.4 billion to the recovery program last month. New Yorkers are eligible to receive about $3.5 billion of that total. The funds can be used to repair common areas in the building like lobbies, boilers and elevators. Some Queens co-ops suffered $1 million in damages, including Cryder Point Co-ops, a waterfront community which has to repair its pier. More than half of the total buildings in Glen Oaks Village endured “moderate to severe shingle loss,” Friedrich said. The co-op will have to shell out close to $300,000 for infrastructural damage.
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