A photo of the lot for sale by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services that yacht club members say was taken about nine years ago. Photo courtesy DCAS

By Joe Anuta

TimesLedger Newspapers

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In a city auction nine years ago, a man put up hundreds of thousands of dollars for what he thought was waterfront property, but it turned out to be a parcel of land in the middle of a College Point boat yard and now the Department of Citywide Administrative Services is attempting to pawn off the parcel once again.

At the time, the 3, 850-square-foot, irregularly shaped lot was completely surrounded by a gravel area that the College Point Yacht Club used to store boats, much to the bidder’s surprise.

“When the gentleman won the bid, he put down a deposit, ” said Kim Cody, a member of the yacht club, at 304 126th St., and president of the Greater Whitestone Taxpayers Civic Association. “When he came to look at the property, he was a little bit confused. We actually marked it off with yellow tape to show where it was.”

The man, identified as James Kim, had put down a 10 percent deposit on his roughly 6, 000 bid at a city-sponsored auction July 23, 2003. Additional information about Kim was not available by press time.

When putting the property up for sale, the city probably had used out-of-date surveys that did not accurately reflect the coastline of College Point, according to Artie McCrossen, the vice commodore at the club. Starting in the 1900s, filling material was added in various places throughout the neighborhood to extend the peninsula farther into Long Island Sound.

It was not clear whether Kim got his deposit back from the city, but the parcel returned to the hands of the department and was set to be auctioned once again May 10 — that is, if the club cannot strike a deal first.

“We’re trying to get that piece pulled from the city auction, ” McCrossen said.

The club wants to trade other property it owns for the parcel, especially since the circumstances of the lot have changed since 2003.

In a brochure the city is distributing, a map of the lot shows it is bordered on one side by a road — a road that does not yet exist.

The city wants to extend Powell’s Cove Boulevard right through the yacht club’s borders on land the club rents from the department. The road would pass right by the property.