Community members protest overdevelopment. D’Angelo Properties, Inc. owns a Carvel ice cream store at 64-01 Grand Avenue in Maspeth. It sought to demolish the one-story structure and, with a bulk variance, construct a 4-storybuilding with a new Carvel, other retail, and community facility space on the ground level, with 15 residential units above.

D’Angelo’s application to BSA represented that a bulk variance was necessary to create a productive use of the property. Conforming retail uses, such as banks, were not feasible due to the irregular shape and the lot’s estimated 5- foot grade change.

BSA reduced building size, but included parking for each unit. The owner of 114 Walworth Street in an M1-1 district of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, sought a variance to construct a six-story, 47-unit residential building with 24 parking spaces on a vacant 17,500-square-foot lot with 175 feet of frontage on Walworth Street. The site, formerly occupied by residential buildings, has remained vacant since the buildings were demolished.

The applicant argued that Walworth Street’s narrow 50-foot width with only 24 feet of paved roadway, coupled with the unrestricted on-street residential parking on both sides, made it impossible for trailers to back onto the site. The site’s slope, two adjacent residential buildings and potentially contaminated soil conditions made conforming development infeasible. The only way to create functional manufacturing or commercial use on the site, the owner argued, would be to create one flat floor plate requiring a combination of excavation and decking at a considerable cost.

Owner sought to convert gymnasium into residential units. Christodora House Association, owner of a fifteen-story residential building located at 601-603 East 9th Street at Avenue B in an R7-2 district of the East Village, sought a variance in August 2004 to convert an unused, interior gymnasium into four residential units.

In its application to BSA, Christodora represented that conversion was necessary because the unique location of the gym within the residential building and its double- height prevented the owner from obtaining a reasonable return on the space. Christodora argued that the gymnasium could not be used commercially because the site is zoned residential, it could not be converted as-of-right to residential because that would increase the degree of non-compliance of the building, and no community facility use would undertake the high cost to convert the double-height gym into usable space.

Nineteenth century warehouse to be converted into condominiums. CPP Development LLC, owner of 109-09 15th Avenue, a 100,338-square-foot waterfront lot in an M2-1 district in College Point, Queens, sought a variance to convert and enlarge the existing three-story, masonry warehouse into a six-story, 134-unit residential building. CPP proposed to construct two rear yard additions to the existing 1856 warehouse, which was formerly occupied by the Chilton Paint Company, and remodel the first floor of the building featuring a glass lobby with waterfront views.

CPP argued that manufacturing uses were infeasible within the existing warehouse, because it would take $2 million to adapt it to current industry standards. The site’s poor soil conditions, surrounding narrow streets, lack of access to major highways, and a State environmental restriction on new building size on the lot, made new as-of-right buildings infeasible. CPP also argued that most of the surrounding waterfront area was being used for residential and commercial development even though it was zoned for manufacturing.

New park would preserve natural features. The Department of Parks and Recreation sought a map amendment and approval of the acquisition of a 1.65-acre wooded parcel of private land to facilitate the creation of Manor Park on the southeasterly corner of Altamont Street and Manor Road in Staten Island.

The proposed park site, currently owned by Kanaga Corporation, includes a series of kettle ponds, vernal ponds, and young and mature trees. The site is used by the public and an adjacent Boy Scout camp for nature walks and camping. Almost half of the park has been designated federal and state protected wetlands. Parks has no immediate plans to improve the site and will maintain it in its natural state.

196 blocks of Cambria Heights down-zoned. On July 27, 2005, the City Council unanimously approved a down-zoning, impacting 196 blocks of Cambria Heights, Queens. It is the first rezoning initiative in this neighborhood since 1961 and the fifth Queens neighborhood down-zoned by the City in 2005.

Designed to closely match the size of existing development, the down-zoning’s new residential districts (R2A, R3A, R3-1, and R4B) decrease the size and density of asof- right buildings. The existing commercial overlay district along Springfield and Linden Boulevards would be decreased in depth to prevent commercial uses from expanding away from these Boulevards onto smaller residential side streets.