By Nathan Duke
Community Board 11 members criticized the city for the delay on a long−awaited rezoning of three northeast Queens neighborhoods and called for changes in the mayoral control system of city school governance at its monthly meeting Monday.
The board also discussed proposed plans for a two−story catering hall and restaurant to replace Douglaston’s Seville Diner at 231−10 Northern Blvd.
A spokesman for the Department of City Planning said the rezoning of Auburndale, Oakland Gardens and Hollis Hills could be underway next month and that the project could enter the ULURP process by summer. The rezoning would then need to be approved by the community board, Borough President Helen Marshall and the City Council.
“This is the year it’s going to happen,” the spokesman said.
But former board Chairman Jerry Iannece said the project should have long since been completed.
“This should have been done a year−and−a−half ago and off the radar,” he said. “It’s unconscionable.”
Deputy Mayor Dennis Wolcott discussed city school governance with the board and said that graduation rates were up 22 percent under the mayoral control system. He said the city would construct new schools in District 26, which covers a number of neighborhoods in northeast Queens, including Bayside and Douglaston, to alleviate overcrowding.
But Community District Education Council President Rob Caloras said the city should focus on building new high schools, not elementary schools, in the district. He said CDEC members in the borough feel as if they have no voice in the current school governance system.
“We want to make sure the word ‘public’ stays in the public school system,” he said. “We make recommendations, but they are ignored. We need checks and balances in the system.”
The city’s schools were formerly overseen by school boards, but in 2002 the state Legislature and the city teachers union handed over control of schools to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But a commission appointed by City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum released a report in September which recommended more checks and balances as the law that gave the mayor control over the schools nears its June expiration date.
At the meeting, the board passed a resolution 23−9 that included recommendations from the board’s education committee. The board said Mayor Michael Bloomberg should continue to appoint the city’s school chancellor and eight out of 18 members of the city Panel on Education Policy. But the board called for the other 10 members of the panel to be picked by the city’s borough presidents.
The board also discussed a proposal for the transformation of Douglaston’s former Seville Diner, which closed early last fall, into a catering hall and restaurant. The project would add a second floor to the existing building.
“We’re afraid if the property becomes a two−story building, then every other property that comes along with have two stories,” said Joseph Sollano, chairman of the zoning committee.
CB 11 District Manager Susan Seinfeld said there is currently no application for the project, but that the Flushing−based developer, who also owns Bayside’s Sem Won Gahk Restaurant, has met with the board and Councilman Tony Avella (D−Bayside). The second−floor addition would not increase the building’s footprint, she said.
The developer wants to put a restaurant on the building’s first floor and a catering hall on the second floor, Seinfeld said. She said the project would retain the site’s 115 parking spots and possibly add a few valet spots.
Seinfeld said the developer must first apply to the city Board of Standards and Appeals. She said she expects the project to officially come before CB 11 within a few months.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e−mail at nduke@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 156.
