"The courtyard area is city owned, and the Department of Buildings has enforcement over any zoning violations seen on the property. Carly Sullivan, an agency spokesperson, said inspectors were dispatched to the site on Dec. 30 — during a vacation week for the school— and did not observe any cars in the courtyard. “In the future, if residents see parked cars there, they should call 311,” she said, saying the agency will be keeping its eye on the courtyard. Meanwhile, she added, the agency has received no complaints about the matter since July 2008.Amy Glosser, vice president of the school’s board of directors,said the school simply inherited a parking lot. “As far as we know, it has been that way a long time, and we don’t have plans to change the use of the space at this time.”
The property was formerly home to the headquarters of School District 15, whose employees also parked their cars in the courtyard.
Maria Pagano, president of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association, said she’s been hearing complaints about the use of this courtyard for the past 20 years. “When the district office used it they said it was just temporary, and that it would be converted back to a garden,” she recalled. “You have to understand, there are people fighting for the restoration of the original gardens who see this every day.”"
In my opinion, this parking situation is on par with how egregious their land grab is. Could you imagine if a homeowner paved over their yard and installed a curb cut and parked cars on a Place Block?
Why would the city choose to go out to see if cars were parked there on a school vacation? No employees to park cars on that day. I will indeed be calling 311 in future... every single day, since cars are parked there EVERY SINGLE DAY except the one day the city decided to go check.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that the parking lot is directly across the street from Joan Millman's office!
ReplyDeleteWhere have her eyes been?
There is an owner/landlord on 4th Place and Court who has an old car under a tarp and parks one or two cars there practically everyday.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on the next block up, 2nd place and Court, there is a car parked semi-regularly next to the newsstand.
First of all,I can't tell if this is serious or sarcastic - it's that ridiculous. the colors on the building are nice and imho opinion are welcoming and enhance the neighborhood. That building was a disaster before they took over. Do you love a drab, empty parking lot? You must, if you don't think that a nice development open to the community would be a significant, significant improvement. um, I think NYC has more important things to worry about then policing an unused parking lot that neighborhoodniks like you are opposed to progressively developing.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting looking bus
ReplyDeleteThere are laws, regulations and statute they want to dismiss or ignore.
ReplyDeleteI would love that flexibility on my projects.
In their PR campaign HS promised the neighborhood that this would be a garden for the school kids. I called BS on that then, but even this cynic didn't think they wold try to break the street line for an extra 750sf.
Neil S. -
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about how ugly and out of context their building is (and, it is, without doubt, but they have all the power to build anythign as ugly as they want). We're talking about THE defining characteristic of the neighborhood.
I'm not saying that what was there before was any better. I'm just saying that ALL parties should be treated equal, and we should be conscious of what Carroll GARDENS really is.
- Michael
Also, they are ANYTHING but open to the community, and have given no indication that their expansion will bring any different behavior.
ReplyDeleteAn entire business opened up to provide them with food, money that is not going to previously local businesses, and their buses cause daily traffic nightmares blocks away.
Additionally, they SOLD their air rights to a developer. They HAD room for expansion, but profited from it's sale, and now want room to expand for FREE.
If that's not having their cake and eating it too, I don't know what is.
Since when is violating centuries old zoning laws (and being the only ones allowed to do so and profit from it) "progressive development"?
ReplyDeleteThe downzoning may have been BS, but your comment is even more so.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteAnon #1 here. I called 311 today to report parked cars. They first tried to transfer me to the local police department which handles illegally parked vehicles. But I said I was reporting a Zoning Violation and they transferred me to the Dept of Buildings. The rep took license plate numbers and car descriptions. Then she noticed there was already a complaint on file and it's only supposed to take one complaint in order for an inspector to be sent out within the next 90 days. I got a case # to call back and check. Also, one can file this info online at www.nyc.gov/dob if you don't want to go through the hassle of calling 311. You can be anonymous.
At the meeting with Hannah Senesh,the most vocal
ReplyDeletesupporters of the takeover were the parents of the school students, who don't even live in the neighborhood. The best is the BS from Ken Fisher, a paid lobbyist for the school, trying to justify the robbery of Carroll Gardens frontage. You can bank on the school,if they get their way,to sell the building and move to a larger building. They already outgrew the space.
DON'T LET THEM TAKE OUR HISTORY AWAY