Community Board 11 is getting set to weigh in on a new zoning text amendment from the Department of City Planning aimed at curbing the “concrete jungle.”
When parts of Bensonhurst where successfully rezoned a couple of years back, supporters where partly hoping to combat the growing proliferation of illegal curb cuts and parking pads.
Now, however, it appears that those efforts might not be enough to stem the tide.
Neighbors in Bay Ridge recently found that out when they saw owners of row houses in their community successfully install concrete parking pads in the front of their homes despite new zoning regulations ostensibly designed to thwart such efforts.
“When you drive up a block you want to see a front garden or a strip of grass,” Community Board 11 District Manager Marnee Elias-Pavia protested this week.
In response to the continuing problem, Community Board 11 is appealing directly to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, asking him tosupport a new measure that would grant the Department of Transportation power to restore illegal curb cuts.
“After a violation is issued it just stands there,” Elias-Pavia said. “It has no bite.”
Community Board 11 has already formed an ad hoc committee tasked with cataloguing examples of questionable curb cuts and parking pads throughout the community.
The zoning text amendment aimed at strengthening existing zoning rules is awaiting certification as the first step in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
The certification is expected to come as early as next month.
Elsewhere in the community, the board is pushing for the installation of high density street lights for New Utrecht Avenue from 61st to 86th streets, and repairs to the Shore Parkway bike path from Bay 8th Street to Bay Parkway.
The next meeting of Community Board 11 will be held at the Holy Family Home, located at 1740 84th Street on November 12. Start time is 7 p.m.
