Talk Bronx New York

Department of Homeless Services adopts a new policy mandating that a homeless shelter provider must first contact the local community board before setting up shop.

 In the end, it was a half-victory.

A Manhattan judge tossed out a suit by a group of Bronx merchants that would have forced the city to conduct a comprehensive study of a neighborhood before opening a homeless shelter there.

The Westchester Merchants Association argued that the city Department of Homeless Services should conduct a “fair share” analysis of an area to see whether it already was saturated with social services organizations before a homeless shelter could open.

State Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Wright tossed the lawsuit Friday.

But the merchants did score a victory two weeks ago, when the department adopted new policies mandating that a homeless shelter provider must first contact the local community board before setting up shop. At the time, one Westchester Square merchant called the change in guidelines “a partial victory.”

A 38-unit shelter opened Aug. 21 on St. Peter’s Ave., just off the Westchester Square shopping district. The Westchester Square Merchants Association took up a collection among its members and filed suit against the city.

With the current economic crisis, the city is facing unprecedented demand for homeless services. Read more..

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A proposed 911 call center that would have put a 37-story building in a Bronx flood plain is going back to the drawing board after the cost shot up to almost $1 billion.

The city had for two years estimated the cost of the 400,000-square-foot building at $670 million, but that jumped to $957 million when a proposed contract with Tishman Technologies was published last month.

“We are scaling back the project in order to maintain the essential elements, but at a lower cost,” said Matthew Monahan, spokesman for the Department of Design and Construction. “The early projected numbers were at another time in the city’s economic history.”

The NYPD says the center is a critical relief valve for the city’s 1 million 911 calls each month, which are all routed to MetroTech Center in Brooklyn.

The Bronx center would take half those calls when finished, but could handle all the calls in an emergency - and would be built to withstand an earthquake, a hurricane, a flood or a terrorist bomb.

Design documents say 750 people would work at the 911 center, requiring a 500-car garage. The city had hoped to finish the building by the end of next year.

Neighbors in Morris Park hated the idea of a 363-foot tower on a 9-acre office park site, as well as all those cars coursing through neighborhood streets, said City Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), who represents the area. Read more..

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Mayor & MTA Announce New Express Bus Routes .. IF…

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director and CEO, Elliot G. Sander today announced what could be a new express bus route from the Throggs Neck Section of the Bronx to Lower Manhattan, if - and only if - the congestion pricing plan is approved by the State Legislature and the City Council.

One of the new proposed routes, the BXM-19, would run from Throggs Neck down to Battery Place, serving as an extension to the existing BXM-9 which currently terminates at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street. Currently, passengers of the BXM-9 who work in Lower Manhattan must transfer to a different bus or subway to continue below 23rd Street.

The BMX-19 would provide Bronx residents with a one-seat ride to Lower Manhattan. Taking place at a bus stop at the intersection of Layton and Vincent Avenues, the Mayor noted that he can not yet cut the ribbon on a service that would benefit thousands of Bronx residents because funding does not exist without congestion pricing.

The new express route, along with 44 other new and enhanced routes and over 300 new buses, would be funded under the Urban Partnership Agreement, which would award $354.5 million in federal funds to the City if the Mayor’s congestion pricing plan is adopted.

The Mayor was also joined by Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, City Councilman James Vacca, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Gene Russianoff, Senior Attorney for the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and local resident Audrey Izzard.

“Legislators in every community must keep in mind the benefits congestion pricing will bring and what we give up if they fail to act,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We face a real need for mass transit improvements, and congestion pricing offers the rare opportunity to fund them.

Without that funding, the MTA will not be able to make these projects happen.

The new BXM-19 bus route is one of hundreds of improvements that depend on the federal funding we will be given if we enact a congestion pricing plan.”

“If we’re serious about encouraging people to use public transportation, we must increase travel options for underserved areas,” said MTA Executive Director and CEO Sander. “This route, for example, would speed Bronx residents from Throggs Neck to jobs in Manhattan.”

“Congestion Pricing is critical to the future of New York City,” said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “That is why we are traveling to many neighborhoods around the city to demonstrate just what kind of mass transit improvements, like new express bus routes, they could expect to see with this new source of funding.”

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 ”If You Don’t Ask You Don’t Get” .. To Teen Program Activists RE Funds

 A Bronx neighborhood has done an end run around a city agency to get an after-school program for its teens, after years without one.

John Fratta, district manager for Community Board 11, has been complaining for months about the lack of after-school programs for local teens.

But the Department of Youth and Community Development responded that since no one in the district had applied for funding when they should have years ago, local kids were out of luck.

So Fratta, politicians and community leaders got creative.

The Mosholu Montefiore Community Center went grant hunting and secured $100,000 from the Boys and Girls Club, hopefully to be matched by the city Housing Authority for a program in the Eastchester Gardens Community Room this year.

“I know deep in my heart you are not going to get the bad kids off the street no matter how you try,” Fratta said.

“But we’re going to get those marginal kids that might become bad kids if they don’t have something to do.”

He said several other teen programs outside of the city youth agency are in the works, including one at an unused gym at Jacobi Medical Center that might become a community center.

Leaders are looking for funding for a Police Athletic League program.

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