The NY Times would like you to consider living in Corona, where the ubiquitous presence of moving vans is considered a good thing.The residential streets north and south of Roosevelt Boulevard, which are quieter than Corona Plaza, are a patchwork of old homes and new construction. “A lot of the houses were wood-framed houses on a large piece of property,” said Richard Italiano, District Manager for Community Board 4. “They’ll take that down, and where you had one or two families, they’ll put up two- and three-family homes.”
Oh yeah?
...Sandeep Shrivastav, a broker at Century 21 Laffey Associates, says developers might pay more just to knock a house down. “If zoning allows for four or five families,” he said, “it could go for $1 million something, and the developer will build multifamily dwellings.”
Wow, point me to my cash cow now!
7 comments:
“If zoning allows for four or five families,”
"Wow, point me to my cash cow now!"
It's not just Queens. I was in Iselin NJ last week. Across the street from a friend stood an old house with a couple of acres around it.
Owner sold for top dollar -now four homes are squished-in.
The key is zoning and having a militant local enforcement.
Realistically though, in these working class areas where a house is -the- main asset most residents have and there may not be much aesthetic awareness, you are going to have a hard time getting changes that limit profiteering by people who have spent 20-30 years paying off the stick house and now want a move to easy street.
This was the target of one of Mickeljohn's infamous Hunter College Studies.
Thanks Lino for your comments.
In a boro loath to rouse itself and spineless to stand up to abusive authority, tell them its happening everywhere else.
On Xenia St they've torn down almost 10 single family houses over the past 8 years to build these mini apartment dwellings. There are no home owners anymore, the block is mostly boarding houses. There are also a couple of shady "Miracle Homes" on the block too. So sad. At one time Corona was a beautiful middle class neighborhood.
“If zoning allows for four or five families.”
How about 5 stories, 12 families ... on a plot of land that originally had a 2-family house.
These new, substandard, shoddy, unaesthetic, plain buildings are popping up everywhere and destroying the home-y feeling and identity of communities like Corona. With their ubiquitous balconies, they resemble prison cells more than residential apartments for people.
Despite their poor quality and miniscule sizes, these apartments are nonetheless expensive for the low-income families residing in Corona, thus forcing several relatives and friends to convert kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms and balconies into bedrooms.
And it doesn't help that avaricious property owners like Vantage Properties are seeking to gentrify the area with a better-paying "creative class". ..And that well-off business owners with shops and restaurants in Flushing are moving into neighborhoods like Corona and Jackson Heights, as Flushing becomes more expensive since it quickly continues to emerge as Queens' main financial/business center.
T'is a sad sad case.
Corona is dead. Cause of death-unmitigated greed.
Too much development is indeed a topic of concern in Corona's residents minds. Lots of them are moving out to other areas of Queens, worried about the crime, development, safety etc issues that are coming to their area. You can see more info on very recent impressions on the changes in Hispanic Corona and the Corona neighborhood here:
http://blogs.journalism.cuny.edu/interactive2010/2009/09/13/new-arrivals-and-exodus-in-hispanic-corona/
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