Daily News from New York, New York • 39

r-" DAIL3T NEWS? Wednesday, January 18, cffHl. MJ 3 1 ixsfar osta Far Landmarks chairman i By JOAN SKEPAH0 a. (M By J. SAUNDERS Daily News Staff Writer The head of the Coalition for the Homeless yesterday denounced as "stupid" the Transit Authority's plan to house 50 homeless men a night in a private shelter. Under a plan announced earlier this week, the TA and the Volunteers of America of Greater New York had signed a $274,000 contract for the VOA to go into the subway system and coax homeless men into vans to be 4- 1 A 1 71 4- 1 ACE 1 1 uaiispuueu iu uie vuiuiiiceia nrnarh the nrnhlem in a real humanistic ter on Wards Island.

Mannrjn Cul-jiul AtVJfi tlXOf A new chairman to head, the small but powerful Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected to be named by the end of the month, Deputy Mayor Robert Esnard said yesterday. Gene Norman, the existing chairman, resigned his post in November in order to become head of the proposed Harlem Trade Center. Norman has been chairman of the commission for the last five years. "We have been looking at a lot of people," Esnard said, "but we cannot comment on any list of names." Those named More than a half-dozen prominent people in the city have been mentioned. They include commission members David Todd and David Garcia, architect Charles Piatt, a former commission member; Joseph Bresnan, the current executive director, and Richard Conkl in of the Municipal Art Society.

Three women prominently mentioned are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Amanda Burden and a former commission member, Barbaralee Diamonstein. Although Norman's resignation was effective Jan. 1, he will not leave the commission until a successor is named, according to a commission spokesman. Lots of problems Whoever is named to the chairmanship will face a laundry list of problems. The commission has been severely criicized by real-estate developers and historic preservationists both because of the slowness of its procedures.

Earlier in the year, the mayor proposed new rules and regulations for the commission to speed up the process. A new commissioner may just have to reorganize the office. One of the major issues that will face the new commissioner as soon as he or she sets foot in the office include the hardship application by St Paul and St Andrew, a West Side church seeking to expand its property in order to produce revenue. The church's application, which will be opposed intensely by preservationists, is on the commission's calendar for Jan. 31.

The following week, the battle to save the interior of the Scribner Building on Fifth Ave. will start way, he said. The city's Human Resources Administration has contracted with the VOA to run the Wards Island shelter. The TA contract is separate. It uses the VOA's outreach service, some of whose counselors were once homeless themselves.

Many homeless persons shun city-run shelters because they fear crime, regimentation and general degradation. "Most of these barriers can be and are being overcome," Richard Salyer, executive director of the Volunteers of America. The VOA has run similar outreach programs in the last two years at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the World Trade Center, both meccas for the homeless. A Port Authority spokesman called the VOA approach a "success." "They are a stable population of counselors in the same facility," the spokesman said. "The key to their program's success is earning the trust of the individuals they contact" Under the TA plan, three vans, each with teams of five outreach workers, go to designated subway stations and persuade homeless persons to accept shelter.

The men will go to the VOA's facility on Wards Island. Women and children will be referred to other shelters by the HRA. The VOA said that "we are just about full every night, and we will be holding out 50 beds until 3 a.m every morning for the Transit Authority." "Terrific," was the derisive comment of Robert Hayes, counsel and founder of the Coalition for the Homeless. "They will keep other homeless out to hold 50 beds for homeless -from the subways. 'Filled to capacity' "That shelter is already filled to capacity," he said.

"There has not been a single unused bed there in a year." Carl Green, the TA's assistant vice president for government relations and head of the task force on the homeless, took issue with Hayes' remarks, terming them "self-serving." Green said the TA chose the VOA program after six months of research and talks with clergy, businessmen and elected officials as well as a cross-section of New Yorkers concerned about the problem. "We (the Transit Authority) are not in the homeless shelter business," he said. He added that the TA chose Volunteers of America because it had the best "expertise." "They ap- TfoOBIT IhlDft Board raps City Spire By PJ. SAUNDERS Daily News Staff Writer The carefully worked-out plan to allow CitySpire, the world's tallest apartment building, to grow 11 feet beyond city height regulations may be in trouble. Community Board 5 has issued a scathing report demanding that the city refuse to issue a special permit to allow the 72-story luxury condominium at 150 W.

56th St. to soar beyond its originally approved height of 798 feet While the board's vote is not bind-" ing, the City Planning Commission and Board of Estimate the two agencies which can give the go ahead traditionally do not take such community opposition lightly. "This guy (CitySpire's Bruce Eichner) deliberately went out and broke the law," the board's district manager, Joan Ramer charged. "The feeling is that some of these real estate people go ahead and do what they want then make up for it in some meaningless way. You have to say 'Stop' eventually." The "make up" plan, worked out by the Koch administration and Eichner earlier this year, allowed Eichner to let the building grow in exchange for agreeing to scale back significant granite and metal abutments and parapets.

He also promised to build what was BRIGHT, WARM SUNSHINE leads passengers to lower the top of their horse-drawn cab yesterday to celebrate the early arrival of spring. Temperatures in Central Park bumped 50 degreees. Hansom cabs, by the way, are enclosed, have only two wheels and the driver sits at the back. patcarrou. daily news problems during construction.

They were also concerned about the "blocking of light and air to the lower floors of the neighboring apartment building" at 145 W. 55th St, whose tenants have been in the forefront of opposition to the luxury tower. the compromise. It questioned the "suitability" of the dance space in an area which City Center officials say is too narrow, expressed great concern over possible security problems from a proposed exit through the City Center. The center has already had crime termed "critically needed" dance rehearsal space above an enclosed walkway near its neighbor City Center, home to a half dozen of the world's most prominent dance companies.

The local board report denounced.