Applicant Lobel on community board changes and applicant background
Lobel summarizes changes made in response to Community Board 2: reduced parking, removed curb cut, added sustainable measures, mural on western exposure. He notes the 32-2 community board vote in favor and the applicant family's 40+ year history in Long Island City.
So I think just to summarize, and I know our time's concluding, we did have recommendations from the community board, and those did result in some changes and modifications to the building design.
So as Nick noted, we changed the parking layout.
We removed a curb cut at the request of the community board.
We attempted to add some environmentally sustainable measures to the building to kind of greenify the building.
There is a rendering which shows a mural on the side of one of the buildings.
The community board noted that it was preferable to have that condition than to have a blank wall.
Yeah, sure.
Can we fast, can we forward to the slide showing the
Western exposure of the building.
It's probably a few in front of this.
There you go.
So, right, one back.
There you go.
So that was the discussion with the community board.
They said it just as an opportunity perhaps to have a local artist to provide a mural for that site.
And we said we'd be happy to do that.
To give background, the building at the site has been there for roughly 70 years.
Ashley, who's our applicant and her family, have owned the property for over 30 years.
They are longstanding Queens and New York business owners.
They had an operating business in the city for over 80 years.
And so, you know, she's been a great applicant for us, has expressed a willingness to enter into these discussions.
We were happy with the way things went at the community board.
It was a 32 to 2 vote in favor, which we felt was very strong.
We have had subsequent conversations with some of our neighbors who appear here today, and we're happy to continue to engage in this conversation.
Some of the discussions with the community board were coincident in terms of the issues they looked at.
Other ones are things that we would look at in the future in terms of programming the commercial space below.
There was a request to have community facility and local commercial space, as well as an opportunity to contribute to local greenery and parks and such, which Ashley has expressed a willingness to do.
So I think with that, the applicant team would be more than happy to answer any questions.