By Chris Fuchs
The meeting, which drew nearly 100 residents from Flushing, Whitestone, Bay Terrace and College Point, was the first to be held in the new year. The board covered much ground, but at times got bogged down by some audience members who repeatedly called out and interrupted the meeting.
In the end, the board managed to wend through three items – a request to erect a canopy over a gas station pumping isle, a proposal to change a bus route in Whitestone and an application to add on a gymnasium to an eight-story College Point church. The board voted on each and elected officers for 2001.
Surprising to some audience members, though, was the amount of attention paid to a request to raise a canopy at a gas station on Clintonville Street. The applicant, Henry Brusic, first filed an application with Community Board 7 in November to put up a 17-foot, aluminum canopy over a pumping island at the Getty Station on 10-02 Clintonville St., which he has owned for six years.
At the November meeting, several Whitestone residents, including Neal Vartanian, spoke out against the application, saying the canopy was the first step in turning the station into an all-night truck stop. He also said that tractor trailers lumber down Clintonville Street, a commercial route, and fill up with gas at Brusic's station, an eyesore that he said was driving down the quality of life in the community.
The board decided to put off making a decision on the application until January.
So Monday night, amid praise from dozens of Brusic's supporters who rose to speak and invective shouted by Vartanian after the vote was announced, the board decided to approve by 27-12 Brusic's request to build a canopy. The approval, though, was merely a recommendation by the community board to the city Board of Standard and Appeals, the final arbiter on such matters.
“The community board members are smart people,” Brusic, a 15-year Whitestone resident, said in a phone interview Tuesday. “They know when a business person is trying to do something to improve himself and the community.”
The board members also voted unanimously, 37-0, to recommend approving a route change to the Q14 bus, which runs through Whitestone. The proposal is to extend the line, currently looping around Clintonville Street and Seventh Avenue, north up 150th Street to Third Avenue, where it would complete a square bounded by 149th Street and Fifth Avenue, eventually making its way back to 150th Street.
The other item discussed Monday night was a request made by the Full Gospel N.Y. Church, at 130-30 31st Ave., to add on a 17,000-square-foot gymnasium to the church. Community Board 7 voted against recommending that the application be approved by a 32-4 vote margin with one abstention.
The board members were against the extension principally because of a decision made by the Board of Standards and Appeals and the Economic Development Corporation in 1998, in which the Full Gospel Church was permitted to build in the Corporate Park in College Point. Community Board 7 had voted against this in 1997, a decision ultimately overturned by the Board of Standards and Appeals.
Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the EDC, the agency that oversees all development in the corporate park, said the church had applied for a variance to use the building, a former hotel, and it was approved by the Board of Standards and Appeals.
Janice Cahalane, a representative of Sheldon Lobel, the law firm representing the church, said the gymnasium would be used for after-school programs for teenagers. Cahalane said the first four floors of the eight-story building were used for religious purposes, and the fifth through eighth floors for commercial purposes.
In addition to the three items discussed Monday night, the board also elected its officers for 2001. The members elected Eugene Kelty as chairman; Bob Lopinto as first vice chairman; Jim Crisafulli as second vice chairman; Frank Macchio as third vice chairman; and Joe Governale as fourth vice chairman.
The elections are held once a year and all of the board members vote by ballot, not by a voice vote, said Marilyn Bitterman, the district manager of Community Board 7. Chairmen of the board cannot serve more than five consecutive terms and executive officers cannot hold the same position for more than three consecutive years, Bitterman said. Terms are for one year.
