By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
Dozens of Queens civic leaders voted unanimously Monday night against a proposal intended to restrict the ability of houses of worship and medical offices to move into residential areas.
The Queens Civic Congress vote at the Kew Gardens Community Center came after a panel discussion with city planners on the proposal hosted by the congress, an umbrella group of about 100 civic associations in the borough.
“I seem to be losing more than I’m gaining from this,” said Queens Civic Congress President Sean Walsh of the proposal, which for the first time would impose parking restrictions on houses of worship in low-density residential areas.
The legislation, championed in the City Council by Tony Avella (D-Bayside), also prohibits new medical offices from locating in districts zoned only for one-family homes, among other provisions. Christopher Collins, counsel and deputy director of the City Council’s Land Use Division, said the city would “incrementally address some of the specifics” in terms of community facility concerns.
Walsh, along with other civic leaders, criticized the proposal for allowing medical offices to obtain variances up to 10,000 square feet and eliminating parking requirements for houses of worship in higher-density residential areas.
Walsh pointed out that Forest Hills was home to taller residential development and said the Department of City Planning, which formulated the new regulations along with the City Council, had failed to address the overall size of community facilities.
“City Planning has avoided the issue of really dealing with the fundamental questions of community facilities in this city,” Walsh said.
Avella said he was not invited to the meeting but agreed with the concern over the medical office variance.
“It’s a compromise,” the councilman said of the proposal. “It is further than we’ve ever gotten in 40 years. If this fails, there’s no question that there will be no change to the community facilities law for the foreseeable future.”
Tyler Cassell, president of the North Flushing Civic Association, questioned whether the new regulations would stand up to legal challenges on the grounds that medical offices and houses of worship should face equal parking requirements.
Though not every civic group was represented at Monday’s vote, Queens Civic Congress Executive Vice President Pat Dolan said 45 of the 71 people at the meeting were official representatives of civic organizations.
“It does represent the thinking of the group,” Dolan said.
Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) said Tuesday that he was opposed to the parking requirements because of the many Orthodox Jewish synagogues in his district.
“People don’t drive to go to synagogue and so a mandate to provide parking to me seems unduly and unfairly onerous and burdensome.”
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
