FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com february 7, 2013 • THE QUEENS COURIER 7 PARKING WARS LIC residents blame parking problems on Manhattanites BY ALEXA ALTMAN aaltman@queenscourier.com Long Island City dwellers have circled the block for the last time. Residents of the rapidlydeveloping district, sick of searching for scarce parking, blame Manhattanites for using the neighborhood with lax street-side laws as their personal parking lot. “It’s a convenient place for those living or working in Manhattan to leave their cars for the day or weeks,” said Peter Johnson, a Long Island City resident who claimed the problem has persisted for years. One Manhattanite who works for Citicorp left her car parked at the edge of Johnson’s house for several months. She told him she occasionally stopped by during her lunch break just to turn the car on to recharge the battery. “She had no qualms about taking the parking that should be for residents,” said Johnson. According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), street storage of vehicles is prohibited. On streets that are without regulations for alternate-side parking, including residential neighborhoods, cars are not allowed to remain in the same spot for seven consecutive days. Johnson suggested resident parking stickers as a possible fix to the parking problem. The DOT said residential permits are not under consideration as the agency does not have the authority or funding to implement a system. “We do know that people are leaving their cars on the streets for long period of time,” said Community Board 2 Chair Joe Conley. In May of 2012, board members conducted an impromptu experiment, scrawling dates and times on cars in dust along 47th Avenue and 48th Avenue to track their movement. Cars didn’t move for several weeks. As part of a separate cleanliness initiative, Community Board 2 reached out to the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) in hopes of bringing street cleaning to the neighborhood. Conley believes the parking regulations necessary for street cleaning will alleviate some traffic tension. “Throughout the rest of the district we have alternate side parking so cars have to move,” said Conley. “In Hunters Point we don’t have restrictions so cars can stay there forever.” THE COURIER/PHOTO BY ALEXA ALTMAN Conley also believes the area’s booming population and residential upswing has attributed to parking woes. The formerly industrial neighborhood, which mainly saw circulation increase during week days, is now subject to seven straight days of traffic. Conley added that while LIC has always suffered from a serious parking shortage, turnover of parking is essential to residents and businesses in the neighborhood. Some cars sit for weeks on LIC streets. No one knew a CASINO WAS IN THE CARDS BY TERENCE M. CULLEN tcullen@queenscourier.com A proposed casino for Willets Point, rejected by the city months ago, will not be an option moving forward, officials said. The casino, along with a hotel and entertainment center, would have gone over what is currently a parking lot, according to plans provided by NYC Park Advocates. Instead, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last June that the area would become a 1.4 millionsquare foot shopping and entertainment center called Willets West. But Related and Sterling Equities, the two entities developing Willets Point, offered to buy the 61.4 acres needed in the original project for $100 million when a casino was attached. Involved in the proposal were also Triple M, Gateway Casino Resorts, LLC and The Shinnecock Indian Nation. These three companies are not involved in the current development. To have a Native American casino in an unzoned area would require federal approval, according to the proposal. “There is no casino being built at Willets Point, period,” said Nicholas Kelly, spokesperson for NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC). “A proposal in 2011 that included a gaming use was rejected.” But NYC Park Advocates president Geoffrey Croft is troubled that the idea was entertained without public disclosure. Croft, who opposes any commercial development in or around the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, was curious why the city had not come out and said it had rejected the plan, as opposed to keeping it under lock and key. Instead, he requested the information under the Freedom of Information Act. Operator, contractor cited in Long Island City crane collapse BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA ctumola@queenscourier.com The Department of Buildings (DOB) has issued 12 violations to several parties involved in the Long Island City crane collapse that injured seven workers earlier this month. According to the DOB, these violations have a minimum combined penalty of $132,800; $64,000 of that amount was issued to the crane’s operator, Paul Geer. “Cranes are complex pieces of equipment that serve as the driving force of any major construction project,” said DOB Commissioner Robert LiMandri. “They must be properly operated and maintained, and when that fails to occur, there can be serious consequences. In this case, neither the crane operator nor his supervisors made sure the operation was being performed according to approved plans.” A preliminary investigation by the DOB found that Geer tried to lift 23,900 pounds of lumber at the 46-10 Center Boulevard site, more than double the crane’s weight capacity. The DOB also said that Geer couldn’t see what he was picking up and was lifting the materials outside the approved loading zone. Geer and the contractor, Cross Country Construction, LLC, received five violations for operating a crane in an unsafe manner, failure to inspect equipment prior to operation, work that does not conform to approved construction documents, failure to safeguard all persons and property affected by construction operations, and failure to post proper load chart for crane. The site safety manager, Arthur Covelli, and the property owner, TF Cornerstone, were also each issued a violation for failure to safeguard all persons and property affected by construction operations.
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