Apartment Building Could Replace Family Home In Rego Park

REGO PARK, QUEENS — A Rego Park resident hopes to construct an apartment building where his family's Tudor-style duplex currently stands, Patch has learned.

Roshel Khaimov, an administrative director at Novel Medicine, owns three houses on Wetherole Street near 67th Avenue; a stretch of the block primarily lined with single-family homes, property records show.

Two of those adjacent properties — 66-45 and 66-47 Wetherole Street — however, could be torn down to build a 75-foot-tall, 8-story apartment building with 21 units, some of them income-restricted, a zoning application shows.

Dr. Rita Goldvug, speaking on behalf of Khaimov because of a language barrier, told Patch that the building owner lives in those properties with his family.

Novel Medicine, which is listed as applicant on the zoning application, would move from its nearby 67th Avenue office to the ground floor of the future apartment building, Goldvug said.

The application hasn't entered the public review phase of the city's land review process, known as ULURP.

During that public process, the community board and borough president will issue advisory recommendations about the project, and the City Council will make the final decision based on a vote.

Public land use processes have become particularly contentious recently in Rego Park and Forest Hills; suburban-like areas of central Queens that have seen a housing boom in the last decade, especially as parts of northwest Queens become increasingly unaffordable.

While some neighbors oppose development on the basis of preserving neighborhood "character" and architecture (language that is sometimes a veiled way to oppose low income housing), others say that more affordable housing is necessary in the quickly-growing neighborhoods (though questions over what is truly affordable housing are also recurrent).

As of Feb. 2, the City Planning Commission hasn't voted on the application for Wetherole Street. After the commission's review, the application will be handed over to the public, starting with Community Board 6.

Related Article: Disputed Luxury Building To Include More Deeply Affordable Units