State Senator and residents opposed addition of catering hall to Whitestone restaurant. On June 29, 2011, the City Council approved a modified version of Joe Franco’s proposal to rezone the western side of 154th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in the Whitestone section of Queens. The plan rezoned five lots and will facilitate the expansion of Franco’s White House restaurant located at 10-24 154th Street. The White House currently contains a cellar-level banquet room, a ground-floor restaurant, and a vacant apartment on the second floor. Franco proposed rezoning the western frontage of 154th Street from R2A to R3-1 with a C2-2 commercial overlay in order to renovate and enlarge the second floor to contain a 20,512 sq.ft. catering hall. The project would also provide 110 surface and below-grade parking spaces.

The surrounding neighborhood is characterized by a range of commercial, manufacturing, and residential uses. Franco owns the lot immediately south of the White House, which includes a two-story mixed-use building and a parking lot that wraps around the rear of the restaurant. The lots immediately to the north of the White House include two single-family homes and a bank. In 2005, as part of the Whitestone Rezoning, the City rezoned portions of the five lots from R2 to R2A. The interior portion of the block to the east was rezoned from R2 to R3-1. 3 CityLand 3 (Feb. 15, 2006). (read more…)

Commission and Council Member Avella pleased with developer’s decision to reduce proposed number of units from 114 to 52. On October 29, 2008, the City Planning Commission approved 151-45 Sixth Road Whitestone Partners LLC’s plan to develop 52 single-family homes in the Whitestone neighborhood of Queens, just south of the East River between the Whitestone and Throgs Neck Bridges.

Whitestone Partners originally sought to develop the 12.8 acre parcel with 114 detached, semidetached, and attached residential units and provide 132,500sq.ft. of open space. In response to the Commission and community’s concerns, Whitestone Partners reduced the number of units from 114 to 52, and modified its plan so that all units would be single-family and detached. The developer also proposed 503,000sq.ft. of open space, including 130,345sq.ft. of publicly accessible common open space guaranteed through a restrictive declaration. (read more…)

Council approves new lower density and contextual zoning to preserve the existing neighborhood scale. On December 21, 2005, the City Council approved the Planning Department’s rezoning plan for 311 blocks located in the Whitestone, Beechhurst and Robinwood neighborhoods of Queens. The rezoned area is bounded by the Whitestone Expressway to the west, the Clearview Expressway and Little Neck Bay to the east, 25th and 26th Avenues to the south and the East River to the north.

The rezoning, like other recent down-zonings in Queens, was proposed to address overdevelopment and out-of-character construction, retain the area’s low density character, and prevent commercial uses from encroaching onto residential streets. The approved action replaced existing R3-1, R3-2 and R2 zoning districts with four districts (R1-2, R2A, R3X and R3A) that will generally limit future development to mostly one-family detached homes in R1-2 and R2A districts and some two-family detached homes in R3X and R3A districts. The new districts specifically limit lot coverage, perimeter wall heights, garage size, attic heights, and building heights to eliminate the means available in an R2 zoning district to double the permitted floor area. (read more…)