From the Daily News:CITY PLANNERS are weighing a proposal to rein in the rapid growth of McMansions in the Cord Meyer section of Forest Hills.
A number of the Cape Cod and Tudor-style homes that were a hallmark of the neighborhood have in recent years been replaced by brick mansions.
And many lawns have been paved over to create concrete driveways and grand entranceways.
"People have been waiting for this for years," James Walsh of the Association of Old Forest Hills said of the plan.
"The whole character of the neighborhood is changing."
While similar zoning changes have been approved in other parts of Queens, the Cord Meyer proposal could prove to be especially sticky.
Many of the new homes have been built by members of the Bukharian Jewish community - a growing presence in many Queens neighborhoods, including Forest Hills, Rego Park and Kew Gardens Hills. They are a Jewish sect with origins in Central Asia.
Photo from the NY Times
15 comments:
Bukharians are not above the law!They must follow the same laws as every other American citizen! Sorry Melinda-- a little too late with this legislation. What were you doing for the past 8 years????
And now you want to run for city Comptroller??? Good luck.
Complained to Melinda at least 7 years ago and she hadn't the slightest idea where and what I was talking about.
"The whole character of the neighborhood is changing."
The whole character of many of our neighborhoods has already changed. It's too late. Now they have us all on speedy-rezone status as if we're that stupid and we'll forget how we were ignored for so long.
I don't think so Bloomie.
JUST SAY NO TO BLOOMBERG!
These buildings look like holy h@ll! Too bad you can't buy taste!
It's too little, too late.
money never equals taste
Hopefully, they aim for the northern area next.
Fuck the neighborhood and its character. If you buy a piece of land. You can do with it as you wish. END OF STORY.
Actually, you can't. That's why we have zoning rules, asshole.
Looks like phony tony como's house.
Did phony tony como write the last comment?
And I bet that you dont even own a house. So take your zoning laws and shove it up your ass.
I most certainly do own a house, and in a historic district too where the development is even more restrictive than the zoning allows. So shove your backwards thinking attitude up your ass.
Zoning was developed to protect property values and prevent homeowners from being ruined when noxious businesses moved in.
Examples of people being hurt when zoning is lax are legion. The worst that I can think of was the destruction of 60 people's homes in the Father's Day fire in Astoria. Lax 19th century rules caused a situation where people were living directly over a building filled with flammable chemicals.
In fact, its luxury building replacement suffers from the exact same problem because of unchanged zoning and we may have dead tenants to join dead firemen next time.
Does Phony Tony Como know what a zoning law is?
Melinda Katz did all she could to destroy our neighborhood- her exact words back in the day were that we had to welcome the "new people" with open arms. Well Melinda, I hope your new folks vote for you (I doubt they will) because you betrayed everyone that has lived in Forest Hills and paid taxes and were part of the community for past 40-60 years. We took pride in our homes. Now the neighborhood looks like crap! The "new folks" have no regard for anything. They do what ever they want! Why should any of us follow the law if they don't have to? We have to look at destroyed homes for years while the homeowners fight to disregard all the building codes. When they finally build their ugly as sin monster homes- we can't see our of our windows because they have built up the edge of their property. Fun to watch your neighbor dig down 30 feet to make sub-basements and just hope to hell your house doesn't slide into their hole! They also don't think following the direction of the street traffic applies to them- why drive around the block like everyone else when you can just turn down the wrong way and go into your driveway! @$@%^#%!$#^!$#^!@$#
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