Office of Borough President James P. Molinaro
Staten Island, New York
B.P. Molinaro and Councilman Oddo Oppose DOB Approval of Mixed-use Site on New Dorp Lane
Borough President James P. Molinaro and City Councilman James Oddo have written to Department of Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster asking her to rescind approval of a mixed-use facility on New Dorp Lane that lacks sufficient parking.
The site in question used to house the old Welsh Agency, and has now been approved by the Buildings Department as a mixed-use facility containing three retail stores on the first floor and 15 apartments on the second through fourth floors.
Although the building is located completely within the commercial district, the parking is not permitted on the residential portion of the site, according to Molinaro and Oddo.
“Our issue is with the calculation and location of the required accessory parking for the facility,” the officials wrote in a letter to Commissioner Lancaster. “The philosophy applied to this proposal permits additional bulk, while undermining the actual requirement to provide parking. It also assigns an accessory use for a mixed building to a residentially-zoned property that only permits one or two-family detached dwellings.
“To add insult to injury, this particular area is the subject of a downzoning application,” the letter continued. “If this project is permitted to proceed, the zoning floor area, as approved, will be almost three and one-half times the amount that will be permitted after the rezoning.
“We anxiously await your response and look forward to assisting you in establishing a policy that will protect the existing neighborhood character and preserve the anticipated quality of life for our constituency,” the letter concluded.
October 21, 2005