By Adam Pincus
The property, located at the southeast corner of 39th Avenue and 50th Street, was included in a map distributed at a Landmark meeting Nov. 29 at the Sunnyside Community Services. But at the meeting Jan. 17, the parcel was no longer in the proposed district.Plan commissioners and some elected officials had spoken with Landmarks Preservation Commission to request the change, Landmarks spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon said, but she did not identify them more specifically.”On further study it did not seem meritorious enough to include, so it was excluded,” de Bourbon said. “Nobody said it has anything to do with a pending sale.”The plot of land, about 100 feet square is for sale, Community Board 2 chairman Joseph Conley said.The property is not developed, and has swings and play equipment that have not been used in 15 or more years, Phipps residents said.An official with the owner of the property, the Phipps Houses Group, declined to comment.Phipps Houses Group owns and manages the Phipps Garden Apartments across 39th Avenue from the playground as well as owning or managing hundreds of other properties in the Bronx and Manhattan. The change brings up the sensitive issue of where boundaries are drawn in proposed landmark districts and what efforts residents and officials can make to remove or include properties.The Landmarks Preservation Commission is reviewing approximately 600 buildings in Sunnyside Gardens for consideration to be a landmark historic district. Much of the area under review, including the playground, was included in a Special Planned Community Preservation District designated in 1974 by the City Planning Commission.The community board, which represents Sunnyside, Woodside and Long Island City, sent a request to the mayor's office for the city to buy the parcel to maintain it as public space, Conley said. He said he became aware of the availability when several developers approached the board with plans to develop the property with residential and commercial buildings to the maximum of the potential usage. He had not yet received a response by last week.The area is zoned R-4, the same as most of the gardens, which generally permits two-story attached buildings common in the area.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
