BEAUTIFICATION: NO MENUS here for free!

NNA has just added another flier for you to download and use to help reduce litter from fliers.

The signs are sized 4x6 for white index cards. Two can be laminated in an 8.5 x 11 sheet at Kinko's for under $3. Carefully cut out your No Menu laminated signs, leaving extra plastic around the card. Using a hole punch, make 2 holes in plastic - top and bottom- for fastening to a fence, using care not to cut into the card, otherwise the laminate will not be waterproof.

The good news is these have greatly reduced litter on 36th Street.






NNA is trying to reduce street litter in our neighborhood. Feel free to use Norwood Neighborhood Associations's "No Menu" fliers in your community too!: click here for high quality files.

Cafes and Clubs Hurt Residents' QOL

Our Precinct #114 Community Council met September 22nd, 7Pm at Ricardo's. The meeting was very informative and encouraging. A Norwood Neighborhood member attended and spoke with Precinct #114 Executive Officers, Deputy Inspector Vorbeck, Captain Tarantola (traffic safety) and Lieutenant Morrales (Special Forces; crime) about the chronic Quality of Life issues Norwood residents' have been facing. Late night noise disturbances, fighting and brawls, vandalism, public drunkenness and speeding cars on 36th Street have been cause for concern and safety to all residents.



The Officers were very receptive and will be conducting hot spot investigations in our neighborhood. Captain Tarantola said the Precinct is trying to get a speed bump installed on 36th Street to slow traffic down and make our streets safer.
The Officers will be giving a follow up report at next month's
Community Council meeting.

Deputy Inspector Vorbeck was pleased and rightfully proud to report that Quality of Life complaints and crime in Astoria are down in comparison to previous years and that Astoria is a much safer community. Norwood residents look forward to working with our Community Board and Precinct #114 to ensure Norwood residents' share in this welcome trend.


Contact Police Precinct #114 Community Affairs

Chronic 311 Noise Complaints in Astoria and Norwood Gardens

Daily News on noise in Astoria.

Invitation to Beautification!

We have lots of beautiful and unique green spaces
in Norwood Gardens so there must be many talented
gardeners! NNA would love to get neighbors together a few times
a year for street beautification. Let's all help make Norwood Gardens
the best it can be. It will be fun working together on this project.
Look forward to hearing from you! Please click here to enjoy
some of 35th, 36th and 37th Streets great green!

R4B Letter to City Planners                     

                                                       

 

Date: June 25, 2009

 

Re: Zoning designation for Norwood Gardens: bounded by 35th, 36th and 37th Streets between 30th Avenue and 31st Avenue.

 

Dear Queens Department of City Planning, John Carusone, Chair of CB1Q Zoning Committee, Mayor Bloomberg and elected officials:

 

Norwood Neighborhood Association members and residents have been fighting for R4B zoning since 2002 after a four-story apartment building busted the continuity of a beautiful and architecturally significant row of attached 1-family homes on 36th Street in Astoria. Our fight made The Daily News and all the local papers. Please see our website:

http://norwoodneighborhoodassociation.blogspot.com/

 

Over the past seven years, NNA members have logged in hundreds of man-hours, working hard behind the scenes on zoning concerns. We've met with residents many times. We’ve also consulted with land use experts, urban planners, civic leaders, community organizations, preservationists as well as our elected officials. We have gone door to door on 35th, 36th and 37th Streets and found that the MAJORITY of property owners (and renters too!) want Norwood Gardens to be zoned R4B not R5B. Do City Planners incorporate the overwhelming needs and desires of the community that will be rezoned and the community’s vision for the future?

 

NNA applauds this long overdue rezoning initiative and proposal for Astoria. We appreciated Ian Haegerty’s meeting with NNA’s representatives and explaining how an R5B designation would protect Norwood Gardens from commercial overlays, curb cuts, front yard depth minimums and building line up. R5B works well for the residential blocks whose character reflects an R5B zone. We can’t emphasize enough how highly unique our 3 blocks are. Only R4B zoning will give Norwood Gardens adequate protection!! Let the signatures of over 100 property owners speak for themselves! We demand R4B zoning for our 3 unique blocks and the height restrictions (24’) and protection only R4B offers. We invested in the low-rise neighborhood of Norwood Gardens and want to protect our investment! Our Quality of Life is under attack by inappropriate development. Norwood Gardens has had 2 blows to its character. We need R4B protection now. Enough!

 

Zoning and visionary planning should go hand in hand. Norwood Gardens R4B designation will benefit more than the property owners. An attractive neighborhood with a discernable character (think of Greenwich Village) increases in value over time and offers a high return and many benefits to everyone, residents and businesses alike. 30th Avenue has a vibrant street life, much of this due to the special nature of Norwood Gardens’ attractions and contributions to our area. Astorians love 35th, 36th and 37th Streets’ leafy low-rise setting. It is this character that draws visitors from all over NYC. Let’s not have inappropriate zoning for the next 50 years!

 

Out of context development has ravaged so much of Queens and is taking its toll on our community. 38th Street between 31st Avenue and 30th Avenue is a sad street, ugly, lacking continuity and stripped of its character. 38th Street will never recover from the destruction and disgrace developers brought and which inappropriate zoning permitted. Shame! Please, we urge you, do no not make the same mistake for Norwood Gardens. R4B is the contextual zone which most closely reflects our community.

 

Norwood Neighborhood Association members met June 23rd in preparation for the upcoming CB1 zoning that will meet 6/30/09 at Astoria World Manor. Our chief topic of discussion was should Norwood Gardens (35th, 36th and 37th Streets between 30th Avenue and 31st Avenue) accept an R5B designation. The response was a resounding NO – we vote for R4B!

 

Respectfully yours,

Norwood Neighborhood Association

mailto:norwood.astoria@gmail.com

 

Norwood Neighborhood Association

PO Box #9102

Grand Avenue Station

Astoria NY 11103

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

             

 

             

PO Box #9102 Grand Avenue Station, Astoria NY 11103

                                     email:  norwood.Astoria@gmail.com

R4B Letter address to NYC Planners

Biggest Rezoning of Astoria Since 1961!

Peter Vallone, Sr. moderatesTown Hall Zoning Meeting

Town Hall Meeting on Astoria Rezoning Proposal.
Over 150 concerned Astoria residents showed up at the Town Meeting May 5th, as City Planners unveiled their Zoning Proposal for over 8,000 Astoria properties; the biggest zoning study in almost 40 years!

Director, Queens City Planning, John Young

Norwood Gardens has long been pushing for a zoning study. Local residents watched in disgust, the razing of 38th Street's 1 and 2 family homes. Beautiful, front gardens are now gone and so is 38th Street's leafy, homey character. Norwood Gardens homeowners and residents DO NOT want this to happen in the Norwood Gardens Community (35th, 36th and 37th Streets between 30th Avenue and 31st Avenue) and have been pushing for R4B a contextual zone that would protect the beauty and distinct character of our low rise neighborhood. Norwood Neighborhood Association had a strong presence at the Town Hall zoning meeting May 5th, and applauds Council Member Vallone's pushing for this zoning study and his support of contextual rezoning.

Council Member Peter Vallone speaks in support of the zoning Study.

During the zoning meeting, New York City Planners explained how "upzoning" will be guided to "appropriate" areas of Astoria and how "contextual zoning" of low rise communities will not allow them to be inappropriately and destructively developed. Contextual zoning will protect many of Astoria's low rise neighborhoods that Astoria residents appreciate. These low rise pockets bring benefits to all of Astoria's residents (home owners and renters alike), by providing variety, green spaces and a solid sense of community with an investment and love of their neighborhood.

Residents expressed concern that some very important planing issues were not addressed, e.g., more green spaces! Green spaces are disappearing at an alarming rate: front gardens are being replaced by built out-apartment buildings, community churches and surrounding green areas are being razed in order to develop the properties and front yards are cemented over to make room for parking slabs. Residents need more public parks and green spaces! Families near Broadway / 30th Avenue between Steinway and 31st Street rely on Sean's Place playground (38th Street). The playground is so overcrowded it's dangerous. In the Zoning Proposal, 30th Avenue and 31st Street and Broadway are zoned for high density. Are there any green spaces or parks included in new Zoning Proposal to accommodate more residents and families? It is our City Planners' responsibility to incorporate these important quality of life needs in the 2009 Zoning Proposal, as this MAJOR Astoria rezoning project will affect Astoria residents for many years to come.

Suggestion:

Are there incentives in the new Zoning Proposal to encourage developers to include green spaces and plantings in their development projects? Developers often build out as far as possible and are not concerned with adding quality of life benefits for the neighborhood at large. Developers do not live in our communities and their primary concern is not in creating or contributing to a better more livable community. Families and residents want and need beauty, quite spaces and green in their environment.


Norwood Neighborhood Association has been working on a rezoning study for many years.
When a 1 family home was razed breaking the architectural continuity of 30 planned, attached homes, the community went to the press and elected official in hopes of getting a zoning study initiated. Articles appeared in: Daily News (June 6, 2002), The Western Queens Gazette (June 5, 2002), Queens Chronicle, June 6, 2002 and Queens Chronicle, June 27, 2002 and more. It's taken 7 years to get a Zoning Study. Let's hope R4B is approved for Norwood Gardens and that the implementation takes place soon before more damage is done.

Please, mark this important date on your calendar!
The City Planning Dept. will explain the new
zoning proposal. It's important we show up!
The meeting is scheduled for 6/30 at 6:30 pm
at Astoria World Manor, 25-22 Astoria Blvd.