By Brendan Browne
Community Board 8 voted unanimously last week against a St. John’s University proposal to build a five-story, 477-vehicle parking lot at the corner of the service road of the Grand Central Parkway and 168th Street.
Members of the board also frowned upon the university’s plans to merge three existing garages at the corner of Union Turnpike and 170th Street into one 227-vehicle facility with rooftop parking in a 20-18 vote.
Though the community board does not have the final say on the outcome of the proposals, its votes will be forwarded as a recommendation to the borough president and the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals, which will decide the fate of the garages.
Neighbors of St. John’s in Hillcrest and Jamaica say that a new garage on the Grand Central Parkway would be dangerous and, like the three Union Turnpike facilities, would add traffic congestion.
“You don’t have sufficient space to easily and safely get into and out of the parking garage” on the Grand Central Parkway service road, said Kevin Forrestal, a community board member at the June 12 meeting. “It will increase the amount of traffic which is already a problem.”
Although St. John’s has tried to address safety issues, board members say the speed of the traffic on the service road would make it dangerous for cars to slowly pull into a new garage without causing a backup. It would also be difficult for cars to reach the speed of other vehicles on the service road when leaving the garage, they say.
Some residents, already unhappy with the three existing garages on Union Turnpike, believe merging the garages would cause more traffic, noise, and light to be shined from the facilities, especially with rooftop parking.
There would be “a 33 percent increase in the amount of light and traffic going on,” said Forrestal. “It increases the traffic, light pollution, and noise pollution. We don’t believe it was appropriately or legally built in the first place. It didn’t meet the conditions of the road.”
St. John’s, which has worked with traffic experts in an attempt to insure safety, said it has altered plans for the garage on the service road by placing it further back on the lot, which adds more space to enter and exit. The university also believes merging the Union Turnpike garages would not add too much traffic and said it would place screens on the garages to lock in light.
“Sure. We’re disappointed. We presented the facts clearly and the facts are we need more parking spaces. The only way is to build multilevel parking garages,” said Jody Fisher, a St. John’s spokesman.
Fisher, who believes safety issues have been properly addressed, said new parking space would draw student vehicles out of the neighborhoods around St. John’s and onto the campus where they are less of a nuisance to the residents.
Since the university borrowed money from the state to build its new dormitories, under state law it must have just over 4,000 parking spaces, Fisher said. If its current proposals are nixed by the city, the university will be forced to build several smaller garages to reach that number, which would be costlier and aesthetically less appealing, he said.
“That’s not a threat. We have to. That’s the reality and we would like to build as few (garages) as possible,” Fisher added.
Reach reporter Brendan Browne by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 155.
