Parolee responsible for car break-in spree

From LIC Post:

The police believe that they have nabbed a man responsible for a large number of neighborhood auto break-ins.

Long Island City—from Court Square through Hunters Point—has been subject to about 60 auto break-ins in recent months, according to Captain Brian Hennessy, the commanding officer of the 108 police precinct. However, an August 24 bust has brought that spike to a halt, he said.

Hennessy said the police caught the perpetrator breaking into the cars by wrapping his fist up in clothing and punching the windows.

They arrested Rafael Medina, a 45-year-old from the Bronx, who was out on parole when he was busted. He is back in prison.

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New tri-borough rail line proposed

From CBS New York:

Transportation advocates hope New York City’s next mayor will take a fresh look at a bold idea — creating an inter-borough train that would link Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.

The proposal calls for the train to come out of the Bronx over the Hell’s Gate Bridge, tower over parts of Queens and run below street level through the heart of Brooklyn – a little-used freight line that could have a very busy future, CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported Thursday.

The Regional Plan Association calls it “Tri-Boro RX.”

“Makes it easier for people to interconnect among all these neighborhoods in the city,” said the association’s Jeff Zupan.

The existing freight line that runs from Hunts Point to Bay Ridge would be used for new commuter rail service. One estimate has it carrying 80,000 passengers a day.

“What this does is create a rail line, a transit service that has transfer points with bus lines and with subway lines throughout the three boroughs,” Zupan said.

Zupan said the line could easily connect major transit hubs, including Astoria-Ditmars, Broadway Junction and Kings Highway.

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Build what you want. City Planning has your back.

From the Daily News:

Dozens of homeless families are living in squalid conditions in two illegally operated South Bronx shelters.

And the owner of the buildings — on Southern Blvd. and Hall Place — is one step closer to gaining city approval to keep the shelters open, despite the protests of neighbors and officials.

The landlord, Julius Ausch, got the thumbs up from the Department of City Planning last week on a zoning exemption that could allow him to keep the buildings operating as shelters.

Residents complained of mold, mice and shoddy construction work in the building.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeless Services would not address the legal issues, saying only that the agency was “being kept abreast” of Aush’s efforts to bring the buildings into compliance.

Locals have battled the scofflaw landlord in the past.

They argued that Ausch — who lives in Brooklyn — willfully disregarded zoning laws when he built the Southern Blvd. residence two floors higher than he’s legally permitted.

He later leased it to New Hope, which opened it as a homeless shelter in 2009 and operated under temporary approvals that expired in May of 2012.

The City Council has two months to make the final call on the zoning exemptions for both shelters.

The Upper West Side is also fighting a shelter. Pretty soon, the City will just consist of high-rises for tower people and one giant homeless shelter.

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Ok, Queens. Can we top this one?

From CBS 2:

One look at the abandoned house in Riverdale and you know exactly why the neighbors are so upset. The shingles have fallen off. You can see holes in the roof. A tree is actually growing out of the house. And garbage and machinery is strewn all over the yard.

Public records show the house was purchased in 2006 for more than $3 million. The property is owned by a real estate company called 620 Blackstone, LLC, run by Josh Neustein.

Neustein owns several rental properties in the area and lives only a few miles away from this home, also in the fancy Riverdale section of the Bronx.

A woman inside the home told Leitner she was at the wrong address, but neighbors and public records confirmed the residence owned by Neustein.

He was named to the city’s worst landlord list in 2012 by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, with 753 open hazardous violations on five buildings.

What's with the zoning here?

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He's certainly no Helen Marshall

From the Bronx Times:

Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. may want a soccer stadium for the Bronx, but forget about sacrificing any parkland for it.

“I do not think that using public parkland is such a good idea,” said Diaz, who would still love to see an arena built in the borough for the NYC Football Club, a Major League Soccer franchise still vying for a home in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Wow. Why is it that on this side of the water elected officials think that building stadiums on parkland is a great idea?

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Bloomberg taking Liu to court over former commissioner's contract

From the NY Times:

Fed up with what he views as a pattern of obstructionist behavior, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has taken the rare step of filing a lawsuit against the city comptroller, John C. Liu, for rejecting two municipal contracts.

The contracts would pay Aguila Inc., a company run by Robert V. Hess, Mr. Bloomberg’s former commissioner of homeless services, a total of $67.6 million to operate homeless shelters in the South Bronx and on the Upper West Side. The shelters on the Upper West Side, on West 95th Street, have long been a target of criticism from local residents and elected officials, who say, among other complaints, that the area has an excess of similar facilities.

Mr. Liu rejected the contracts on July 3, saying they were too vague as to how many people would be offered services. And in a criticism of Mr. Bloomberg’s record on homelessness, Mr. Liu argued that “it would be unconscionable to compound past errors with these faulty contracts.”

But Mr. Bloomberg, in a lawsuit filed on Thursday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, said the courts had long held that registration of contracts was “not a vehicle for the comptroller to usurp the mayor’s authority to enter into contracts.”

So what do you think is really going on here? Bloomie trying to get his buddy a contract before he leaves. So loyal to this particular individual that he will waste taxpayer money on a lawsuit to make sure he gets paid. Sounds like honest graft to me.

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City will probably never see money from parking garage

From Crains:

The embattled Bronx Parking Development Co., which has defaulted on its bonds and owes millions of dollars to the city, is trying to raise money by selling development rights to two street-level parking lots it owns near Yankee Stadium-area, but the outcome is unclear.

In April, the BPDC issued a request for proposals to develop two lots on city-owned land under a sublease from the parking company, which holds the lease. The request for proposals, which was posted on the website of the city's Economic Development Corp., specified that the development be built to sustainable standards and include a rent schedule for the entire term for the sublease, which would run through 2106.

Responses were due back in June. Edward Moran, who was brought in as BPDC's chief restructuring officer in March after the company, which owns a total of five garages and nine street-level lots, defaulted on its bonds, could not be reached for comment on Friday.

The BPDC has been losing money since last year, driven by lower-than-expected demand for parking at its 9,294 parking spaces, which remain half-empty on some game days. The company missed its last payment to bondholders, due April 1, after dipping into its reserve fund to make the previous payment.

The city is not on the hook for the bonds, but as of last October, the BPDC owed $25.5 million to the city in rent and payments in lieu of taxes. The Mayor's Office of Management and Budget did not respond to questions of how much is currently owed the city.

But unless the BPDC can dramatically turn around its fortunes the city is unlikely to see the monies it is owed anytime soon, said Doug Turetsky, chief of staff at the Independent Budget Office.

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Jailing slumlords

From the NY Observer:

Though Joel Loutan has earned a nod in the New York Public Advocate Office’s Worst Landlords Watchlist, he has yet to grab a coveted spot on the site’s “50 Worst Landlords” list. After today, however, it’s likely he will.

Bronx Housing Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Loutan, a landlord who allowed his building to slip into some of the most “deplorable” conditions seen in the city’s housing units. A collapsed roof, rotten wooden beams, leaking walls and defective boilers rank among the property's most prominent features, Crain's reported.

The building at 1514 East 172nd Street—though just four units large—has racked up over 30 open housing code violations. Though the property was placed in HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP), which compels owners by law to make the necessary reparations, he has repeatedly defied the city's Orders to Correct. Among those orders included replacement of the roof, re-pointing the exterior walls, re-wiring the entire building, and replacing the heating plant.

But after Mr. Loutan failed to appear in court on numerous occasions to address the charges (his attorney couldn’t seem to find the time either), Bronx County Housing Court Judge Jerald Klein demanded his arrest.

According to Eric Bederman of HPD, Mr. Loutan’s case is only the fifth of its kind in nearly eight years.

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Whitestone Cinemas to become mall

From Jeremiah's Vanishing New York:

The Whitestone multiplex cinema has shuttered after 30 years in business. It was purchased for $30 million last year by real estate development company the Lightstone Group, who will be turning the site into New York City's first outlet mall.

The Lightstone Group is best known these days for its massive luxury development of Gowanus, but they have developed a number of outlet malls--full of typical mall chain stores. The one at Whitestone will be a chain itself--in the Paragon Outlets chain of outlets--and will "feature an open-air racetrack design and showcase over 100 global brands."

Whitestone Cinemas opened in 1983, when its owner, media magnate Sumner Redstone, decided that an indoor cinema, with lots of screens, would be more lucrative than his father's old drive-in. Mr. Redstone credits himself with inventing the word "multiplex," which he trademarked it in 1973.

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