Construction concerns dog Corlear Avenue

By Kate Pastor
kpastor@riverdalepress.com

If you live in Kingsbridge, home is where the crane is.

A walk through the neighborhood can feel like a tour of a boundless construction site. And while the new Kingsbridge Library represents undisputed progress, other construction projects have left residents feeling under siege, confused and overwhelmed. And if and when the economy rebounds, the projects will only multiply.

Bad neighbors

Between West 230th and 231st streets, across from where the new Kingsbridge Library is being built, 3050 Corlear Ave. has become a neighborhood nuisance on the way to becoming an apartment building.

“They have no respect for anybody on the block. They do what they want, when they want,” said Denis O’Flynn, 43, a resident there.

According to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, neighbors have been calling his office to complain about vehicles used for construction on the property owned by Sycamore Court Apartments, LLC. They have griped about damaged sidewalks, dust from the site and litter left behind daily by workers with no apparent regard for more permanent residents.

Neighbors on the block have complained about work being done after designated hours and damage done to property. Most recently, they have been up in arms over a fire hydrant they say was ripped out of the ground by construction workers, leaving behind only a small hole filled with water that runs down the block.

“With the water flowing down, it stops right in front of my house,” said resident Tammi Cambrelen, 41, who said she has to regularly sweep the water into a gutter “which is overflowing with trash.”

A recent walk along the area’s sidewalks found the street covered in a layer of dust, cars kicking it up as they drove through. Eleven large sacks of cement sat on the street. Nearby, a flatbed truck parked where residents complain they can no longer do so held unprotected barrels labeled diesel. Debris, seemingly from workers’ lunches, lay strewn on the sidewalk and in gutters.

“There’s about 16 to 17 children on the block, if not more,” said Mr. O’Flynn, concerned about any danger that might be posed by the dust.

But, he said, “Everywhere I call, it’s like it falls on deaf ears.”

Ms. Cambrelen said her 17-old-daughter’s asthma “has never been this bad,” and Monday morning was the first time she has seen the gutters being cleaned.

Patrick Scanlon, 86, also lives on the block and said machinery blocking the street’s entrance on West 231st Street has caused greater difficulty for his granddaughter, who stays with him after school. She is disabled and barely able to walk, even without obstructions, he said. Now the school bus driver sometimes has to drop her off on West 230th Street, a longer distance from her door.

While Manny Kazanas, the site’s construction manager, said residents are notified in advance of street closures, Ms. Cambrelen disputes that. And she added that as a result, street cleaners come by even more infrequently than reduced street cleaning allows.

About a month ago Anthony Reid, an organizer for General Building Laborers Local 79, returned to the street, bringing along an inflatable rat that now faces 3050 Corlear Ave. The local is protesting because union contractors are not being used on the project.

Mr. Kazanas, who said he feels like a local because he grew up on Tibbett Avenue, and because his parents still live there, denied many of the allegations made by residents and attributed complaints to union sympathizers.

He said that while work had been delayed to avoid undermining the adjacent Church of the Mediator—an ongoing inconvenience— he had no idea there was a problem with dust and will “review the situation.” He said he was aware that a subcontractor knocked down a hydrant.

“I thought we had repaired that,” he said, and vowed to have it taken care of.

A spokesman from the City’s Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees hydrants, said DEP was notified last week and would replace it by the end of this week.

At the moment, however, the Church of the Mediator’s Rev. Diego Delgado is the only neighbor who seems satisfied. After considering a lawsuit against Sycamore Court Apartments, LLC, he came to an agreement with company, based partly on its willingness to upgrade the church’s bathrooms.

Others say their complaints are falling on deaf ears.

“Our local politicians? Useless. They’ve lost total control on that block,” Ms. Cambrelen said.

Schoolhouse crock?

Less than a block away, 3120 Corlear Ave. is also on the rise. In addition to apartments, the building, owned by Pancas International, was slated to house the Bronx Community Charter School, beginning in the fall of 2010.

But a Department of Education spokesman recently said the department worries that the building might not be ready for the start of school.

The city reached out to the State Department of Education to evaluate the site in case another location is necessary, a spokesman said. The state is in charge of finding locations for charter schools.

“I can’t even imagine how they would have something up and running for September,” Mr. Dinowitz said. His office sits near all the construction.

Construction glitches have included building equipment encroaching on a neighbor’s property and the developer’s accidental run-in with water while building above the buried Tibbett’s Brook, Mr. Dinowitz said.

“When these Einsteins struck water, it wasn’t a shocker to me,” he said, adding that everyone in the neighborhood knows the brook is there.

Looking up at the building, Mr. Reid from Local 79, who works in construction, agreed that he could not imagine the building being ready for the school to open in September.

“This is maybe like 40 percent, because you don’t see none of the walls in there,” he said.

Oddly, the permit issued for 3120 Corlear Ave. makes no mention of a school at all. The permit allows for a 10-story mixed-use building to contain health care facilities on the lower floors with one- to threebedroom apartments above, a Department of Buildings spokeswoman said.

Eric Chen, a partner in Pancas International which owns the property, said an amended floor plan that includes the school will be submitted this summer, and that the bottom floors of the building could still be completed in time for the first classes.

“The thing is, the interior for the bottom floor could be constructed very quickly,” he said. Internal work would be finished on the higher floors during the school year.

He said he hasn’t heard anything about moving the school to another location.

Not everyone wants more schools in the area, including Mr. O’Flynn.

“We already have three schools,” he said. “How many more schools are they thinking of putting in such a close vicinity?”

The block already teems with students from the John F. Kennedy Campus and IN-Tech Academy MS/HS 368 on West 230th Street, he said.

“It’s mayhem when school gets out, and now they want to put in another school?” Mr. O’Flynn said.

Down the hill

A few blocks west, on the hill that separates Riverdale from Kingsbridge, another unfinished building — 3210 Riverdale Ave./3217 Irwin Ave. — spans the divide.

The owners of the building want to build a parking garage on the Kingsbridge side of it, and have requested permission to do so three times in the last year. But all 3210 Riverdale Assoc. — the group that has title to the building — has succeeded in doing so far, has been to unite Community Board 8 against the project.

The garage, where some spots would be for residents of the currently empty apartment building and others would be reserved for commercial use, was already rejected twice for fear it would bring too much traffic to an otherwise quiet street.

The developers, on the other hand, say they need the garage to ensure an adequate return on their investment, according to Charles Moerdler, chair of Community Board 8’s Land Use Committee. Because of a 2002 street collapse on Riverdale Avenue that preceded construction, as well as the difficulties of building on a hill, costs have skyrocketed, Mr. Moerdler said the developers claim.

They couldn’t be reached for comment.

Critics say the space for a garage was carved out before variance requests were ever made and that the developer had all the facts to make an informed decision about whether building in the tricky location was worth the trouble.

“There’s a doctrine in zoning law called self-created hardship,” Mr. Moerdler said, adding that it applies here.

“You shouldn’t be building anything there, and it’s simple as that,” Mr. Dinowitz said.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Kingsbridge residents, he said, that they might get an unwanted parking garage causing congestions, while new apartments become available up the hill in Riverdale.

Now, the lot is stalled, with no work being done and no hardhats to be found on a recent walk past the site.

The Board of Standards and Appeals recently held a hearing on the issue, but hasn’t made a decision on whether the variance should be granted.

No end in sites

And it looks like there’s more to come.

The old Riverdale Gas & Garage, located opposite the UHaul store on West 230th Street between Corlear and Tibbett avenues, is also under construction, possibly primping to become a bank, Mr. Moerdler said.

To the west, near the Manhattanville Nursing Home, he also sees potential for construction.

“That is clearly someday gonna become a construction site,” he said. “The question would have been what day next week, if you asked it three years ago. Now finances are different.”

All the construction currently under way should spur better community planning, Mr. Moerdler said. He wants a renewed discussion about what developments are most needed in the local area, in the hope that all the current construction pain leads to a better neighborhood for everyone who lives here.