By Michelle Han
A Supreme Court judge this week ordered construction temporarily halted at the site of a controversial apartment building in Forest Hills, where residents have mounted an unrelenting campaign to permanently remove it from their quiet neighborhood.
The six-story apartment building with medical offices going up at 77-16 Kew Forest Lane has been at the center of a heated debate over whether such a large structure belongs in a small region of mostly single-family homes.
Flushing developer Albert Mushibayev and Long Island engineer Joseph Lieberman were granted city approval in June for the project and the Kew Forest Neighborhood Association formed shortly afterwards to oppose construction of the building.
The neighborhood is also slated for a rezoning that will bar the construction of multifamily structures in the future, but the rezoning will not affect the project already under way.
As a final effort, the Kew Forest Neighborhood Association is asking the court to force the project
