(Tomas E. Gaston)
(Tomas E. Gaston)
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A filthy rich former sanitation worker has turned a quiet Bronx street into his own personal driveway, claiming the tiny road as “private property” to park his fleet of pricey cars, irate neighbors say.
Road hog Carmelo Cabrera, 44 — who recently hauled in $3.8 million from a disability lawsuit against the city in 2005 — claimed the small strip of Edgehill Avenue in Riverdale as his own shortly after plunking down $1.2 million last November for a gorgeous Tudor mansion that backs up to the former dirt lane.
“He just decided that the street belongs to him,” said one seething resident who lives in the area’s leafy, close-knit enclave.
While Cabrera’s home is on a double lot with a driveway and one-car garage, he and his wife, Michelle, who own at least four cars, routinely park their vehicles smack in the middle of the narrow section of Edgehill, the neighbors said. The street runs between Netherland and Johnson avenues and is accessible only via West 231st Street.
The maneuver blocks access to the back entrances of homes on the road and makes it nearly impossible for others to pass or turn around on the narrow dead-end lane, neighbors complain.
One local said that when anyone confronts Cabrera — or when neighborhood kids try to use the road as a shortcut — he “starts yelling that it’s private property and monitored by surveillance cameras.”
Transportation officials have confirmed that the road is city property and that parking on it is prohibited.
“No Parking” signs had been posted on the road for years at the Cabreras’ end of the street — but mysteriously vanished after the couple moved in.
They were replaced, only to be pushed over.
On separate days last week, Post reporters arrived at the street to find Cabrera’s 2008 GMC Yukon — with a vanity plate, “DSNY RET,” for Department of Sanitation of New York Retired — parked and blocking the road for hours.
A twisted and bent No Parking sign lay in the nearby grass.
Cabrera’s 2006 Ford Crown Victoria is often parked in the road, too, neighbors said, as is a car that’s kept covered by a tarp. Cabrera also owns two muscle cars, a 2010 Dodge Viper and 2010 Dodge Challenger, records show.
One resident said that the surly former Sanit worker’s cars would pile up parking citations, but that the ticket-writing stopped after the no-parking posts went missing.
Residents said they have complained to 311, the Dept. of Transportation and local Bronx officials.
In January, 2011, cops had already met with the Cabreras and “informed [them] of the parking regulations,” according to an email from the Bronx Borough president’s office.
Cabrera sued the city for $10 million in 2005, claiming he suffered “severe, permanent injuries” when a gate came off its track at a Bronx sanitation garage and crashed down on him in February 2004.
Cabrera walked away with the $3.8 million payout — and also collects an annual city disability pension of at least $37,000 because laws prohibiting double-dipping of public funds weren’t in effect at the time.
“We will look into it,” Kevin Burke, commanding officer of the 50th precent, told a rep for city councilman Oliver Koppell during a public precinct meeting last week.
Koppell’s office had questioned why Cabrera and his fleet aren’t being ticketed, and suggested that the former garbage hauler was using a handicapped placard as an excuse to get his “tickets fixed.”
Cabrera declined comment, nimbly chasing reporters away from his car.