<Your Name & Address Here> The Honorable Meenakshi Srinivasan, Chair                        January 19, 2011 New York City Board of Standards and Appeals                    40 Rector Street, 9th Floor                                                        Re: 238-07-BZ  New York, NY 10006                                                     5-11 47th Avenue, Queens I am writing to express my distress that the key component of a Graduate and Faculty Residence that gained community support for the full package has now become speculative. The Developer nonetheless seeks the same benefits that were gained by the promise of what would be there without anything of substance in the offing. There was strong opposition from the Community and its Board to the Developer’s original plan. It was the promise of the Graduate and Faculty housing sold to the Community that eventually influenced support for the whole package. The Board’s decision includes multiple references to a Graduate and Faculty Housing. It is on virtually every page. The public must assume that this concept was very much in the forefront of the Board’s deliberations as it was in pages of testimony by officials, the public, and the Developer himself. Why are we now saying this is no longer a relevant factor? The Developer now wants to fully ‘decouple’ the market rate development and can no longer assure the Community that the benefits promised will be there. The developer cannot assure the Community that a partner they might one day find will be appropriate and non-destructive to the neighborhood’s quiet character. The developer cannot assure that the density represented in its statements to the BSA and to the Community will not be exceeded. More important we now have no guarantee that down the road the developer will not return to claim a new hardship requiring yet another market rate tower. Why should the developer be allowed to have his foot inextricably in the door when the initial foundation for the variance has fallen apart? The Developer presents the loss of a partner for the Graduate and Faculty Housing as something beyond their control. The Community should not have to bear the burden of the Developer’s business plan going awry.  The Community did not agree to support granting all of the additional size and density solely so that the developer could make money. The Community did so only in support of the Graduate and Faculty Housing. I therefore urge that the Board deny this application until such time that a tenant partner actually exists. I also urge the Board to revisit the language of the variance to bring it into harmony with all of the deliberations and testimony that formed the opinion. <Your Name and Signature Here>