Area along Rockaway Blvd and Guy Lombardo around JFK Airport where the city plans cut down the trees and relocate some sites in Willets Point. District Manager of Community Board 13 Lawrence McClean, and Queens Chamber Alliance Barbara Brown rally with the community to stop the movement.
For many people who live in southeast Queens, the 13-acre parcel of trees and vacant land at the intersection of Guy R. Brewer Blvd. and Rockaway Blvd. is a vital buffer between their homes and Kennedy Airport.
City officials, however, see the site as the solution to an urgent problem.
It has been selected as the place to relocate more than 3,000 cars from the College Point impound lot so it can be cleared for a new, state-of-the-art police academy.
"We would rather not move 30 acres of cars," NYPD Inspector Thomas Pellegrino told borough officials last month. "But we are expected to break ground in mid-2009."
Community Board 13 was so unhappy with the plan to move the impound lot into their backyard that it unanimously voted down the proposal in September.
But Queens Borough President Helen Marshall told the Daily News that she has brokered a deal with the city to make the car pound a better neighbor. She intends to give the plan her seal of approval tomorrow.
"They went back to the drawing board and came back with concessions," Marshall said. "I'm very encouraged."
Under the new plan, cars will be stacked two-high instead three in the parts of the facility closest to Rockaway Blvd. to make it less visible.
The number of cars to be housed at the lot has been scaled down to 3,200 from 3,400. In addition, the NYPD promised to limit the types of vehicles brought into the new pound. And the exterior of the pound will be landscaped.
"With the trees and everything there, you won't really see it," said Marshall. "There will be no crushing of vehicles at the site."
As a sweetener, the city agreed to set aside 22 acres of land close to the pound, near Thurston Basin, as a park. Local residents have lobbied for years to get a park on the site.
"The community is happier now that there have been some concessions, but they aren't thrilled," said Richard Hellenbrecht, chairman of Community Board 13. "This had served as a buffer to the airport. It's a green area and it's going away."
There are about 700 trees at the site but only about 100 are considered "significant," city officials told Hellenbrecht. He said all greenery there is important.
"As far as I am concerned any tree with leaves on it cleans the air," he said.
Marshall said she secured a promise from the city to replace any trees uprooted to build the pound.
"Evidently, they were going to level the whole place," she said.
The move would have run counter to Mayor Bloomberg's sweeping PlaNYC 2030 initiative to plant 1 million trees by 2017.
City officials said they searched for other locations in the borough, ranging from the Aqueduct Racetrack parking lot to the Ridgewood Reservoir and near the Kosciuszko Bridge.
None of those worked out, leaving them with the site by the airport border, officials said.
Brooklyn was off limits, officials said, because it already houses three auto pounds.
Barbara Brown, a Community Board 13 member opposed to the plan, said the area is already saturated with traffic and industrial-type businesses.
"The air quality is not good in that part of Queens," she said. "They keep recommending things that pollute the air. That's an issue."
