Bayside Residents Complain to CB 11 of Airplane Noise, Dirty Sidewalks

heard complaints from northeast Queens residents on a and garbage on Bell Boulevard’s sidewalks during its monthly meeting Monday night.

Bayside residents said they were following LaGuardia’s recent decision to test a new route that travels over northeast Queens.

“We moved here five years ago and one of the reasons was how quiet it is,” said Peter Levis, who lives on 29th Avenue. “Planes are now flying relentlessly overhead. We’ve gone from living in a quiet residential neighborhood to a launch pad of a major metropolitan airport. We can’t sit outside because we can’t hear ourselves. If the windows are open, we have to pause when speaking to each other and we can’t hear the television.”

CB 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece said that elected officials representing the community had been attempting to contact the Federal Aviation Administration on the matter.

“We weren’t informed about this by the FAA, which is unacceptable,” he said. “We’re not a landing strip. We were here before they were.”

Bayside residents are going to meet on Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the at Bay Terrace’s shopping center to discuss coordinated efforts for fighting the flight pattern.

Bayside residents also said they were upset by the increasing amount of garbage from business owners along Bell Boulevard.

“There are garbage bags piled up on the sidewalk,” resident Jack Oshier said. “It smells so bad. There’s no reason why merchants can’t clean up in front of their stores. You can scrape the grease off the sidewalk.”

Capt. Jason Huerta, of the , dropped by the meeting to give a rundown of crime over the summer.

“The city is up in crime in every borough and the 111th is going against that trend,” he said. “We’re down by six percent and down in every category with the exception of grand larceny.”

Huerta said the precinct had also noticed an increase in window-entry burglaries in the district.

“We’re asking you to secure your properties,” he said to CB 11’s members. “If you’re going away, let your neighbors know.”