EAST HARLEM — Residents are fuming over the city's proposal to move a sanitation garage used to store dump trucks from 99th Street to 127th Street and Third Avenue.
“What a piece of garbage proposal,” said Derrick Taitt chairman of the developer East Harlem Triangle.
The city’s Department of Sanitation presented their proposal to the local community board on Feb. 10. They want to move it from the current location because it is near a hospital, the structure is crumbling and there is not enough space to store equipment, according to the presentation.
Community Board 11 currently has two sanitation garages — the one on 343 E. 99th St. and another on 131st Street and Park Avenue which is for trucks that serve Central Harlem.
The board previously asked Sanitation to consolidate the two garages.
“The reaction from the community was very negative,” said CB11 chair Diane Collier.
Major concerns were that the garage will not be enclosed and will only be a few blocks away from the other sanitation garage on 131st Street, she added.
There are also concerns about the new garage being too close to schools, a park and the location of a cancer treatment center that is currently under construction, Collier said.
According to DSNY, there are not enough funds to consolidate both garages.
The department submitted a pre-application to City Planning and are hoping to begin the ULURP process in March after completing an environmental review, a spokeswoman said.
The Sanitation Department recently built a state-of-the-art garage in SoHo that serves three community boards and earned a “Gold Standard” certification for environmental design, according to a press release.
“There is nothing in it for the community at all,” said Taitt. “Nothing.”
The new structure will have 19,000 square feet of outdoor parking, a 8,600-square-feet building on the lot, two repair bays, a washing station and fueling site, according to a presentation to the community board.
The site would be on Third Avenue between 127th and 128th streets.
