By COLlive reporter
Residents of Cambria Heights, Queens, living in close proximity to the Lubavitcher Rebbe‘s Ohel gravesite are fighting the center’s plan to expand, the Daily News is reporting.
The Ohel Chabad Lubavitch, which owns five homes adjacent to the gravesite on Francis Lewis Blvd., is seeking a zoning variance to expand its facility to better accommodate overnight visitors.
The plan is to join the homes and build a large structure in the backyard, to create one large building.
An estimated several hundred followers a day visit the gravesites of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Previous Rebbe, and that number swells into the thousands during holidays and dates with significance in the Jewish and Chassidic calendar. Upwards of 20,000 people visit each summer on the Rebbe’s yahrtzeit.
But residents opposing the plan say “the character of our neighborhood would be altered due to higher intensity of use, increased population, and increased traffic,” and complain that visitors already park in front of their driveways and take all the area parking spots. Building a permanent dorm in the residential neighborhood would just worsen the problem, they said.
When interviewed by the Daily News on Thursday, the Ohel center director Rabbi Abba Refson declined to comment on the proposal as a decision has yet to be made.
“We’ll leave it to the wise judgement of the city planners,” he said.
The city Board of Standards and Appeals will make a final decision on the plan.
The Rebbe WANTS! NOT WANTED!
WHY HAVE PITY ON JEWS WHO GAVE UP THEIR HOMES FOR BUBKES AND LEFT THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS TO THE WOLVES JUST BECAUSE ONE OR TWO PEOPLE NOT TO THEIR LIKING MOVED IN. IF NOT FOR THE REBBE CROWN HEIGHTS WOULD HAVE GONE THE SAME ROUTE. THESE PEOPLE HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME.
how about putting the effort and money on bringing the gueuleh
I dont know who you are. However you have a very guilty conscience. Firstly There is no one throwing dirt in the streets. and for the leaves and the little dirt that is there – there are custodians that care for the grounds outside the ohel/ the street
To begin with, when you live in a neighborhood adjacent to a cemetery, the “quality of life argument” isn’t as strong.
What a shame that the “character” of their lower middle-class neighborhood will change. They are in a position to sell their cheap, cramped homes surrounding a cemetery WELL above what the market value should be to Yiddin, and improve their quality of life by buying much nicer, largerer homes. I don’t feel terribly sorry for them. The Yidden in the neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the Broxn etc. whose property values PLUMETTED during the “white flight” demographic changes in the 60s and 70s are worthy of sympathy. Let the people in Cambria Heights save their complaints when their property values are being… Read more »
Unfortunately it is us to blame, those that leave trash and make noise on the streets -The neighbors are right we are not respecting there neighborhood.
We should try to buy some property and make a parking lot from some of them.
The neighbors do have a point, we are invading their little quiet neighborhood and we should try to work things out with them peacefully as the Rebbe would surely have wanted.
they should build under ground