Sanitation Battle Brewing In Borough

Community Board 7 last week unanimously rejected the Sanitation Department’s (DSNY) request to provide garage space in the “Iron Triangle” for garbage trucks servicing the adjacent CB 11 communities of Bayside, Little Neck, and Douglaston.
Members of the Flushing board noted that no DSNY representative attended the meeting. Adding to the tension, the day after CB 7’s turndown of the DSNY’s garage proposal, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty quietly opened a new $28 million, 85,000 square-foot garage in the same area.
CB 7’s harsh rejection also triggered Borough President Helen Marshall’s request for a potentially-explosive meeting with the Sanitation Department to review the contents of the garage application. Mayor Bloomberg and the DSNY are also battling with the City Council to implement its city-wide Marine Transfer program, whose Queens center is also located in CB 7.
Explaining the board’s rejection, Robert LoPinto, the Sanitation Committee chairman, said that approval for the garage had been given “five years ago, for the last time, when we asked the Sanitation Dept. to use this time to find, or erect, a new site in CB 11 — something they failed to do.”
The rejection stressed the importance of each community providing its fair share of space and service for its residents and the rest of the borough.
Heightening Queens’ garage shortage is a panorama of confusing storage problems facing the space-starved DSNY. The crisis places CB 8 and CB 12 trucks in CB 10, and CB 13 trucks in CB 11. Compounding this problem, since CB 12 has refused to store CB 13’s trucks, space for CB 11’s vehicles must be found in CB 7, explained the DSNY.
This intermixing took place, said the application, because “there are no viable alternative sites” in the affected boards. The trucks have been stored inside CB 7’s borders since 1972, and must travel at least four miles along Northern Boulevard to reach the heart of CB 11.
State Senator Toby Stavisky, whose district includes the contested garage, said, “This is a perfect example of municipal overburdening on a single community.”
Councilmember Hiram Monserrate called the DSNY’s request for a five-year extension “not acceptable,” and is working with CB 7 to solve this problem.
Adding to the tumult is CB 7’s questioning the legal accuracy of the DSNY’s application. The document claims that there is no similar facility within a half-mile radius of the proposed site, although a large privately-owned garbage transfer station is located across the street from the proposed garage.
Disregarding the angry charges, Acting Sanitation Commissioner Michael A. Biamonte said, “the Department of Sanitation has been with elected officials and community boards to resolve this issue.”
CB 7 members point to the presence of a large number of borough-wide municipal sanitation services within its borders — including the proposed Marine Transfer Station.
The installation of too many borough-wide sanitation services in one community board raises the threat of a legal action. To stop or delay the process, a suit can be filed claiming that the Sanitation Department is in violation of the City Charter Section 69, which regulates the fair share and co-terminality of city services in community boards. Ten years ago a partially-built DSNY project in Manhattan was scrapped as a result of such a law suit.
Victor Ross is a freelance writer.