REMARKS
Whitestone Lanes Rezoning: Presentation Intro
1:11:14
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179 sec
In Eric Palatnik's intro to his presentation on the Whitestone Lanes Rezoning, he notes that their Land Use Application began 6 years ago.
He shares support to-date for the Land Use Application and contextualizes rezoning.
Speaker 1
1:11:14
You may begin.
Speaker 17
1:11:15
Sure.
1:11:15
Eric Palatnik, attorney of law representing White on lanes.
1:11:20
I'm thrilled to be here today.
1:11:21
I'd like to thank the council member.
1:11:23
She came into a process of rezoning that we started 6 years ago.
1:11:29
And she came in.
1:11:30
I think she was admitted into office a a year or so ago, a year and a half.
1:11:35
Unfortunately, that process of of changing council people midway through a rezoning process caused the miscommunication that the council member is speaking to.
1:11:46
We've been working for the past 6 years on what I think is a model rezoning application.
1:11:52
You are presented today with a rezoning location that is unanimously supported by every single body that it's come before, especially the community board, community planning board 7.
1:12:03
Now, to me play a funny word 7 in Whitestone, in the Flushing area, is a very vocal community board.
1:12:10
And they're very concerned about things such as parking, They're also concerned about the Linden Place Extension, which is an off an exit ramp of the Whitestone Expressway that leads to the Whitestone Bridge that causes traffic delays going back to what I still call Shay Stadium.
1:12:27
They redesigned that Linden police extension 8 years ago.
1:12:31
It was built 5 years ago.
1:12:33
It was done with their input and the former counsel person's input.
1:12:36
Whitestone Lane, which is owned by Marco Macaluso, who's right here today, arrestments of Queen's entire life was a Whitestone, who built this business from the ground up with his family starting in 1965 when they first built it when Ferryland was across the street and there's an entertainment Mecca over there.
1:12:52
Well, Marco tried to develop the property and work through the rezoning with the community acknowledging the intensity of the traffic concern over there.
1:13:02
And one of the main concerns of all community board members throughout this entire process has been the elimination and the prevention of any commercial space in this building.
1:13:13
They refused to act on it.
1:13:15
They refused to support it.
1:13:17
They would not have given it any consent or support at all if it had what they considered to be a traffic generating component to it.
1:13:23
We hired expert after expert.
1:13:25
We did different analyses, and they were right.
1:13:27
What's going up across the street?
1:13:29
If you can go to the next slide, please.
1:13:31
Get someone that's an aerial picture, please.
1:13:33
And I think it's a couple in.
1:13:34
You know a couple more if you can.
1:13:36
There you go.
1:13:36
That's perfect.
1:13:37
So that's why it snowed lanes.
1:13:39
It's surrounded by a shopping center, retail, local retail, its own manufacturing, and we are here today to ask you for a rezoning from the manufacturing to an R Seven a.
1:13:49
The manufacturing district that's Across the Street extends across the street as well, is home to 22 distribution facilities.
1:13:57
They're money makers.
1:13:59
The New York Times site is Across the street well known Wildflower is building a 4 story distribution facility.
1:14:06
The Toys R Us toy store that sits on the side of Fairland Across the Street is turning into a distribution facility.
1:14:10
The distribution facilities wanna be here.
