Glendale Yeshiva Zoning Variance Conversion Meets With Favorable Comments By City Board

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Yeshiva plans to have 700 students living in dorm rooms. There are 1050 students a day on the Glendale property.
Yeshiva plans to have 700 students living in dorm rooms. There are 1050 students a day on the Glendale property.

On Tuesday, July 19th, the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals held a hearing at 22 Reade Street in Manhattan to eye the plans of the Yeshiva Godolah Seminary, located at 74-10 88 St in Glendale. They want to increase the number of people who sleep at the site from 280 to nearly 700 in 177 dorm rooms.

There are 1050 students a day at the 40,000 square foot site and currently 280 sleep there as their studies begin early morning Monday through Fridays. They learn in classrooms, shower and eat in buildings throughout the site and they sleep in dorm style rooms on the premises for nearly a decade now.

Community Board #5 recommended that the application be denied and the department of buildings has issued numerous bouncy castle for sale violations on the site for various violations stemming from not being able to have sleeping quarters on the premises.

Jay Goldstein, representative for the Yeshiva is trying to legalize the use and testified at the hearing that students get up quite early in the morning and spend most of their long day studying for classes in small study groups. “They don’t really leave the premises, thus really don’t have an impact on the surrounding community.”

Community Board #5 testified that based on the Yeshiva’s extensive violations and blatant disregard for zoning and use over the past decade, they should not be trusted. Community Board #5 voted against allowing the Yeshiva to expand to have 700 people live in dorms there.

Clara Sarocco, a lifelong Glendale resident, testified that the water and sewer infrastructure was not built to handle such a large number of people.

Dori Figliola, a Glendale resident who lives directly across the street testified that she sees what is going on there every day and has no problem with them there. “The Yeshiva has proven to me as well as many of the neighbors on my block that they are good neighbors. The boys are not a problem. Most people did not know that they are living there,” she said.

At the hearing BSA commissioner Margery Pearlmutter pointed out that a piece of property this size in this zoning could accommodate a hotel with 300 or more rooms in an ‘as-of-right’ zoning situation. That hotel would produce a greater impact than a use like this.

The next hearing is scheduled in September.

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