Agenda for Norwood Meeting June 23rd @ 7 PM!

Kids drinking in their car, yelling and disturbing sleeping
people at 2 AM, left their empty beer bottle and cups
on 36th Street before driving off.





Garden statue on 36th Street was smashed on the
sidewalk sometime after 2AM June 12th.


Beautiful shrub was ripped out of a 36th Street garden
and thrown on top of a parked car.

Drinking and high speed driving do not mix

as seen in photo of 36th Street car crash.

Residents are furious and FED UP!!!!

An Open Letter from Norwood Gardens Residents!

Queens Community Board 1 , HELP!!!

Re: Approval of outdoor cafe permits and liquor licenses for 30^th Avenue has brought vandalism, late night noise disturbances, drivers using excessive speed and aggression, trash and public urination.

Dear Queens Community Board Members:

As the Neighborhood Association has a meeting tonight to discuss the rezoningproject they cannot be present this evening. I am here as a representative of NNA and Norwood Gardens residents to request your help with serious quality of life issues our community is experiencing.

The new cafes and clubs on 30th Avenue bring a vibrant street life to our community. People from all over Queens and Manhattan flock to 30th Avenue to enjoy the social life provided by new cafes and clubs. Most residents welcome the variety and European flavor the cafés offer but the increase in liquor licenses and outdoor seating permits has also brought late night noise disturbances (3AM), vandalism (auto break-ins, property damage and graffiti), speeding cars (there have been a number of drunken late night crashes), litter (empty, broken beer bottles, trash) and public urination. Norwood members have been in contact Police Precinct #114 re these issues. Our precinct recommended contacting CB1, to request that a task force be assigned to 30th Avenue on the weekends, especially in the summer. If revenue is generated by approving liquor licenses and outdoor cafe permits, some of the income should go towards protecting Norwood Gardens’ residents, people who’s quality of life has been negatively and regularly impacted.
Of utmost concern to the residents (especially the children!) is exposure to the excessive speed and aggression by café patron’s vehicles. We need preventative measures in place before an unfortunate accident kills or maims someone. To curb excessive speed and reckless driving we recommend safety measures such as speed bumps, road or street signage or vibration bumps be put in place to slow cars down. A resident’s dog was run over and killed by a speeding SUV that never stopped. The enclosed photos document the tip of the iceberg what we experiencie daily.

If there is anything NNA can do to help with these quality of life concerns, we welcome the opportunity to help make our neighborhood better and safer.

Thank in advance for your help and support. Norwood Neighborhood Association

NYC Contracted Pruners Hack Back on 35th street

The purpose of City Tree's course:

Street trees enhance the quality of urban life by improving our environment, both physically and aesthetically.
Moreover, a street tree is the only representative of nature to many city dwellers, and thus helps them identify with such issues as habitat loss, destruction of the world's rain forests and the greenhouse effect.

Unfortunately, the harsh environment of New York City's streets greatly diminishes the life span of a tree. The first few years of a street tree's life after planting are the most critical and will often determine it's longevity. With modest amount of care, most of these trees will not only get through this tough period but will actually thrive. In this course, you learn many things about trees including:

*The importance of street trees in an urban environment
*The many problems facing street trees and how to identify and remedy them
*The basic structure and biology of a tree
*How to identify the different species of trees that grow on the streets of NYC
*The agencies to call if you need to report tree problems
*The methods for getting a tree planted in your neighborhood
*What you can do to improve our urban forest

By successfully completing the course and passing a Certification exam, you will be Licensed by the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and Trees New York as a Citizen Pruner. You will have the knowledge and practical experience to help protect our city's street trees, and thereby provide a great service to our entire community.

Pruners on 35th, 36th and 37th Street are still careless and working too fast to do a proper job. They also don't have the right tools. Smaller trees should be pruned with a hand tools not a chain saw.




Reckless Pruners under contract to NYC!
Honorable Mayor Bloomberg Tree Pruning Program
By Contract For the City Of New York Parks & Recreation
Adrian Benepe, Commissioner.




Norwood's certified "City Tree" Pruner was on hand to help advise against excessive pruning of green branches and recommended removing dead wood. Work being done on 6/17/08 was not skillful. Upcutting on the small branches should have been done with a folding hand saw not a chain saw. This way the bark would have been spared the deep cuts made by the chain saw.

Brutal Tree Pruning Shocks, Angers and Saddens Astoria Locals

Astoria Locals angry and saddened over shoddy and unprofessional tree pruning.

Please see links (Links to City Tree Services, Grants and Maintenance) to city agencies for planting new trees, removing dead trees, pruning services, repair and restoration of sidewalk damaged by tree roots, and much more.

To see more photos of pruning damage, click on the images below to view online galleries.



What should have been pruned (dangerous branches) was left, what should have been left, hacked off!



Top of mature tree chopped off! The shock adds stress and risks health of tree.

Knowing how trees benefit the environment and quality of life, our city goes to great expense to plant trees in our community. To risk the health of a young tree with unprofessional and reckless pruning wastes taxpayer money, TWICE!

Stop Brutal Pruning: Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Benepe

Norwood Neighborhood Association is contacting NYC officials to lodge a complaint against hiring unprofessional, contracted pruners to handle a highly skilled job. Trees are valuable assets to our city and community and should be treated as such; not damaged by incompetent and unconscious persons with dull saws.

Astoria Zoning Proposal: Townhall Meeting May 5th

NYC Department of Planning will present their comprehensive Zoning Proposal for Astoria (covering 8,861 lots and 200 blocks) at Ricardo's at 8PM: Address: 2101 24th Ave at 21st Street in Astoria, NY 11102



Link: Queens Gazette Article on DCP's Zoning Study of Astoria

Protect our neighborhoods with contextual zoning!

Stop block busting! No more destruction of attached homes that are damaged in the demolition process. Preserve much needed green spaces vs trend of maximum outbuilding by greedy developers who have no stake in the community other than rental income. Let's have zoning that reflects and protects the community we bought into. Stop commercial overlays on our 1 and 2 family residential blocks such overly by the huge medical Facility on 37th Street near 30th Avenue. This huge commercial medical facility replaced a 2 family home on 37th Street. Between patient traffic and medical care vehicles, congestion for residents and business alike will be huge. Sadly, this non-conforming medical complex dwarfs surrounding 1 and 2 family homes and is totally out of character on our street; another street victim to inappropriate zoning.


Left hand photo: East side of 36th street between 30th Avenue and 31st Avenue. Right hand photo: West side of 36th Street - a 2 family home with a front garden was demolished and an 8 unit apartment building put up. The front garden was cemented over and this rental building was out-built to the max, it's walls breaking the continuity and site line of this beautiful block.





We need contextual zoning! New 4, 5 and 6 story constructions tower over neighboring buildings, blocking light and sometimes butting up against small neighboring homes. Higher density apartment buildings without parking accommodations will cause congestion, not to mention strain on over taxed infrastructure: sewer, electric, transportation, hospitals, schools, sanitation, noise and pollution.




We need contextual zoning that will protect our community of primarily 1 and 2 family residential homes from commercial overlays like the above construction on 37th Street at 30th Avenue. These commercial medical facilities can build BIGGER than residential structures and in this case built up to an F.A.R of 4.6. This medical facility will have a MAJOR impact on the residents of 36th and 37th Streets.

Contextual zoning will prevent busting-up and destroying the street wall line up of row houses and terrace homes such as those on 36th Street and East side of 37th street. Above a set of 30 homes built as a planned community and sharing an architectural style had a single family home mid block demolished for a 4 to 5 unit apartment building. Fortunately a small front garden was kept.

Astoria Contextual Zoning Draft

NYT's article on Balancing Needs of Low-Rise Districts

NYC Department of Planning (Queens Division) presented their draft for future rezoning of Astoria at the Astoria Historical Society on April 14th at 6:00 PM. Slideshow below links to the documents presented. Astoria's current zoning map and proposed future zone map (a preliminary draft) for Astoria illustrate zoning changes that will impact your community. Norwood Neighborhood residents would like to see their 3 blocks contextually downzoned to R4B. On the draft map it is zoned for R5B. Please see the comparison chart to see how this will impact your street.

Norwood Neighborhood Organization members asked how City Planners and City Council would respond to our petitions and request for contextual downzoning of 35th, 36th and 37th Streets (between 30th Avenue and 31st Avenue) to R4B. Response was they will listen and that they want to incorporate into future zoning schemes the zoning residents want. We will be sending copies of our petitions to Councilman Peter Vallone and to the Queens City Planning Board.

May 5th @ 8PM there will be an important meeting on Zoning to be held at Ricardo's (21–01 24th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11102). It's important that as many people from our neighborhood attend this meeting as possible. Email us if you need help getting there. Please, mark May 5th on your calendar!

Click on slideshow below to view enlargements of City Planning's presentation:

Abuse of "Community Facility" in Zoning Regulations

The new commercial medical facility on 37th Street (near 30th Avenue) looms over the surrounding one and two family, 2 story homes on the block . Sadly, the building has been built out to the maximum limit, eliminating the front garden. Access to the service alley (used by residents of 37th and 36th Streets) has decreased significantly, creating a blind spot which poses dangers for pedestrians and cars alike; another result of aggressive building out practiced by developers.

How will this commercial medical facility affect traffic congestion, emissions, and our over burdened infrastructure (sewage, power usage and trash collection) in our neighborhood? We will keep you posted. The inconvenience to date has been significant by work trucks blocking access to the service alley a large part of the time.

And how about the Styrofoam "snow"! All those little white particles drifting about are the result of sanding the styrofoam insulation panels covering the building. These particles are everywhere (in the air, clogging storm drains, in the streets, on plants and on cars) and VERY nasty. Norwood Neighborhood Association wrote the EPA to find out if the particle pose a health risk.

Such is life in an R6 zone! If you don't like what you see and support our downzoning effort, please, email us, write your elected officials and call 311!