FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com THE COURIER SUN • JANUARY 19, 2017 3 Seats available on 14 Queens community boards BY THE QUEENS COURIER STAFF editorial@qns.com @QNS If you want to get involved in your community, now’s the time to do it. Applications are now being accepted for membership to any of Queens’ 14 community boards, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz announced. The advisory bodies handle land use and zoning matters, among other important issues affecting neighborhoods across the borough. “Queens is a borough of families, and our borough’s Community Boards help our families live better lives by addressing important quality of life issues,” Katz said. “To serve on a Community Board demands a significant commitment of time and energy, but any civic-minded resident interested is encouraged to consider applying. Our city government works better when we have active and engaged Community Boards that draw from the expansive knowledge and extensive life experiences of their diverse memberships. All candidates – both new applicants and those re-applying for an additional term – are evaluated based on the relevant experiences they bring to the table.” There are 14 community boards in Queens and a total of 59 citywide, with each board having up to 50 unsalaried members and each member serving two-year terms. All Queens community board members are appointed by Borough President Katz, with half of her appointees nominated by the City Council members for the respective community board districts. All Community Board appointees are required to re-apply at the conclusion of each two-year term and are subject to review and reconsideration by local elected officials. The deadline for both new and returning applicants is Friday, Jan. 27. For the upcoming round of appointments, the two-year term of service will begin on April 1. Despite the important role community boards play in city government, community board members are not compensated for their service. The Community Board appointment application is available online at www.queensbp.org/ community-boards. For more information on becoming a member, call the Borough President’s office at 718-286-2900. Queens foreclosures spike to highest levels since Great Recession BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI smonteverdi@qns.com @smont76 With a total of 2,202 foreclosed homes in New York City in 2016 — 933 in Queens — first-time foreclosures have reached highs not seen in five years, according to a recent report. An analysis by PropertyShark concluded that first-time foreclosures in the five boroughs have spiked by 141 percent in the past five years — though numbers are still far from the highs reached in 2008 and 2009. “Back in July, our foreclosure report revealed that foreclosures in NYC were reaching levels not seen since 2010; and though the spike in numbers slowed down in the second half of 2016, our end-of-year report supports the same conclusion,” PropertyShark writer Andra Rus said. In 2015, Queens recorded 804 firsttime foreclosures. Last year, the borough recorded 933. ZIP code 11434, which covers areas of Jamaica, Hollis and St. Albans, was a “foreclosure hot spot” in 2016, according to the analysis. The neighborhood posted 84 foreclosures last year — the highest number of new foreclosures in one neighborhood throughout all five boroughs. While Queens accounted for 42 Photo via Shutterstock percent of first-time auctions in NYC last year and continued to be the borough with the highest number of foreclosed homes, it did not register the highest year-over-year increase. Pre-foreclosure filings have been on a descending trend since 2013, the report also says. There were 12,573 cases filed across the five boroughs last year — a 7 percent year-over-year decrease. According to methodology, the foreclosed properties taken into account for the report were scheduled for auction for the first time in 2016 and were residential properties that are either single-family or two-family homes or condo or co-op units.
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