Decades-old project faces more setbacks

he latest update on a nearly-30-year-old project in Ozone Park yielded little more than a tentative start date and a whole lot of ire from residents recently.
“Don’t give me five years from now. Three times five years have passed in my lifetime,” said Democratic District Leader Lew Simon, at the Ozone Park Civic Association meeting on Tuesday night, June 16.
The project, HWQ411B, has been delayed numerous times since it was first proposed in 1981, but officials from the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said that if all goes according to plan, 2011 is when construction should begin.
The project, also called Reconstruction of Albert Road Area, will provide new roadways, sidewalks, sewers and water mains, all of which are desperately needed due to either nonexistence or serious deterioration, say residents.
The biggest hurdle now, according the DOT, is property acquisition through Eminent Domain Procedure Law.
According to charts the DDC presented at the meeting, preliminary designs have been completed since the first part of this year. Final designs are expected to be completed by mid-year 2010 and property acquisition – which has been ongoing since 2005 – will be completed in 2011.
The construction itself is set to take place in June of 2011, and be completed by June 2013, a date at which several residents responded to by saying, “I’ll be dead by then.”
Comments similar to those – along with lots of venting and outrage – were expressed in what City Councilmember Eric Ulrich called a “public therapy session.”
“I hear your frustration,” said Maura McCarthy, DOT Queens Borough Commissioner, adding “Construction is supposed to start two years from now, and I know you don’t believe that.”
McCarthy said there are still 200 parcels of land that have to be acquired by the city and the big holdup was due to legal reasons.
Ozone Park Civic Association President Howard Kamph said that excuse after excuse has been given to residents to explain the delay in the 28-block, $40-million project.
“Truthfully, I don’t think I’ll be alive to see this project,” Kamph said
He then presented a letter he received from the DDC about funding for the project.
According to the letter, dated April 27, 2009, funding for the project had been moved to fiscal year 2014 by the DOT, “due to citywide capital program budget cuts.”
This means that even if all property acquisition, designing and planning happen right on time, the funds will not be available for the project until after the projected finish date.
The conditions caused many residents to call for immediate action, even if only a temporary fix. Residents questioned the city agencies as to why they could not start work immediately on several sections of the area and finish later when all the necessary property had been acquired.
The representatives responded that the city wished to finish the project all in one shot over a projected two-year period, rather than in chunks over a longer period of time and risk never completing the project.
“Hopefully, she [McCarthy] can get the funding moved back,” said Kamph. “But there’s no guarantee.”