By Sarina Trangle
Navy scaffolding casing a squat, two-story building, at 78-19 Jamaica Ave., that partially caved in last spring is slated to come down by October.
But whether the former furniture shop is razed or rebuilt remains up to Queens Supreme Court Judge Diccia Pineda-Kirwan.
The city Department of Buildings took George Kochabe, who owns the structure through 78-19 Jamaica Ave. Limited Liability Company, to court because it neglected to fix the building after the roof buckled in March 2013.
The judge has since set a timeline by which the owner must meet various benchmarks for repairing the structure or else he may authorize the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development to demolish it, the DOB said. The department said it believed the timeline contained goals, not hard deadlines.
The owner wants to proceed with plans submitted June 27 to repair the second-story roof and structural walls in a $75,000 project, filings on the DOB website show.
The DOB said it is working with 78-19 Jamaica Ave. LLC to fix issues in the application before a stay the judge imposed on HPD elapses July 16.
The department has already greenlighted plans a contractor submitted on behalf of HPD to demolish the entire building.
If the judge determined the owner was not moving quickly and permitted HPD to take over, the department would hire a contractor to raze the structure and bill the owner for the work.
Ed Wendell, a Woodhaven Residents Block Association director, said the community would prefer to see the building knocked down because it would offer a quicker respite to a volunteer ambulance crew next door, at 78-15 Jamaica Ave.
Bricks and debris damaged an emergency exit to the corps during the collapse, which prevented it from renting the space to a senior center and maintaining a regular stream of income.
Then in March, the corps temporarily shut its doors because melting snow from the partially collapsed building began seeping into its headquarters and flooding the facility.
If the owner is permitted to repair the second-story collapse, the landlord would have until mid-October to complete construction, according to a copy of the judge’s timeline provided by elected officials to the block association.
“It would take months to fix it. They could demolish it tomorrow,” Wendell said, noting that the delays have put the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps and a senior center in a tough position. “It’s just like the olden days, where they used to torture people to death, slowly crushing them to death. That’s exactly what the city of New York is doing to these people.”
Elio Forcina described Kochabe, who once had a warrant out for his arrest after failing to show up to court in connection with 78-19 Jamaica Ave., as a working man diligently trying to repair the building.
“The city is putting a burden on him by trying to get it done as fast as possible,” Forcina said. “Once the building is done, it’s going to look beautiful and everyone in the community is going to be proud of it.”
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
