ASTORIA — The bathrooms at a playground in Astoria Park are still closed after being shuttered because of a plumbing issue this summer — and local parents are calling on the city to get them fixed before the warm weather returns.
More than 300 people signed an online petition as of Friday morning asking the Parks Department to reopen the restrooms at Charybdis Playground, a popular play space near the waterfront.
Though the playground’s bathrooms are always closed during the winter, parents say they don't want to spend another summer without them, according to the petition.
"With the start of the 2016 park-going season just a few months away, we are looking at the prospect of a second full year without clean, safe, and operational permanent bathrooms in the playground," the petition reads.
"Now is the time to address this issue and make the re-opening of the restrooms the priority that it should be.”
But Parks Department spokeswoman Meghan Lalor said they don't expect to finish the bathrooms repairs until at least the spring of 2019, describing the project as "complicated work" that involves the installation of a new sewer line.
Portable toilets will be set up at the playground from spring to fall as the repairs continue, Lalor said.
“My kids go to this park and it would be great to have the bathroom fixed,” one parent wrote on the Change.org petition.
This was not the first time the Charybdis Playground bathrooms have come under fire. Parents have said the facilities are too small for the heavily used park, and many would like to see them renovated entirely.
The only other bathroom in the park is located near the track and tennis courts, and is open year-round.
The Astoria Park Alliance will be meeting with Parks Department Queens Borough Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski at 7 p.m. on Feb. 2 at Bohemian Hall, located at 29-19 24th Ave., to discuss the bathroom repairs.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the date that repairs would be completed. They are expected to be completed by spring of 2019, according to the Parks Deapartment.
