Time after time, the Department of City Planning takes on a project meant to "improve the zoning" in a community. Here are the steps, from Amanda Burden's secret tweeding manual:
1) Approach civic leaders and the community board and tell them you hear their concerns and are working on a rezoning plan to stop non-conforming buildings from being built.
2) Wait 3 or 4 years. During this time, release no information. Work on massive upzonings during this time. Those make the mayor and developers happy. Might even get you a raise or promotion!
3) After the torture period has gone on long enough, leak something out to the press that the new zoning is about to be unveiled. Again, release no information. Do not accept input or suggestions; tell the public they can wait until the meetings to speak their minds.
4) Have "community meetings" and unveil the plans. But do not put any information up on city Planning's website ahead of time. God knows we live off the element of surprise.
5) Highlight the areas that you actually are downzoning. Gloss over the areas that you are pretending to downzone but are really upzoning. When questioned, desperately try to convince the public that the upzoned areas that you are putting before them are really being downzoned.
6) If that doesn't shut them up, tell them that revising the zoning at this stage would require more studies, etc, and that will take another year to fix. Explain that if they don't approve the plan now, there will be a delay that will allow more out-of-character development to happen while the revisions are made. Explain that they can do an amendment to fix the zoning that was not to their liking after the initial rezone is passed. They will fall for it and then hopefully forget about the amendment, because heavens knows we will.
7) If this doesn't work, tell the community board they can pass the rezoning with stipulations. When they choose this route, you will wipe your ass with their stipulations when you return to the office.
8) This formula is foolproof.
Now, with this in mind, enjoy this article about the latest Sunnyside rezoning meeting.
Photo from Norwood Neighborhood Association
7 comments:
Amanda Burden is the worst city planner in NYC's history. She and Bloomberg should go to jail for pushing a reckless tsunami of community crushing development just as greedy and stupid as what caused Wall Street to implode.
They have caused mass displacement. They have gobbled up what green and sunlight there was pushing sky piercing mirrored hotels, condos and mega dorms.
DOB, DEP and Con Ed to name a few dept. should have said no. We can't keep up with these reckless builds but instead DOB past out permits like hot cakes.
We have had record breaking inftrastructure related problems.
We have had how many people die or injured from construction or infrastructure related injuries under Bloomberg-Burden? The answer: Possible another record set by Bloomberg...
Burden is the people's burden and I got that from an anonymous commentor on Queen's crap.
She acts like she is Columbia U, Cooper Union, NYU's personal city planner and she hasn't met a developer with a zone busting plain she hasn't aided.
Even Guiliani's planner said no to Cooper Union supersizing by the black cube near Astor Place and leasing and under Bloomberg she had done it twice...given them an illegal green light weighing way too heavy on the East Village's dilapidated infrastructure.
I did a YouTube Cooper Union is endangering our community and since I made that I was harassed non stop by some students and than something mysterious happened -- the build was put on halt for 2 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-i3aYKo_U
I am happy to tell you their president has stepped down and maybe their new president will stop the madness. I was told they lost their backing and will start their build in 2 years.
Considering the streets surrounding them look like a bomb was dropped and Con Ed is out there daily and it smells of gas I believe they had to stop their greedy reckless Burden blessed disaster because the infrastructure can't handle one more zone buster in the East Village.
Amanda mega millionaire socialite city planner is the worst city planner and their is a socialite crisis in NYC so she needs to return to her truly calling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgOdYAosFAw
If you haven't seen my 3 new YouTubes on Mike Bloomberg's ads I call legalized graffiti in the subway at Grand Central instructing us to "Think Bloomberg" you have got to see the YouTube series. I contrast Orwellian billionaire with is less than transparent ads in Grand Central with an activist being fined and threatened by the city for his door having graffiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG1TBJr57cQ
http://www.youtube.com/user/Suzannahartist#p/a/u/2/bbD1HWEV7g4
http://www.youtube.com/user/Suzannahartist#p/u/3/Y7oQQarpO6U
Thanks Queens Crap,
Suzannah B. Troy
Also I believe our Con Ed bills are higher because we have to pay for Con Ed's infrastructure expansion for all the sky piercing condos, hotels and mega dorms.
Con Ed can't keep up with all the infrastructure problems like gas leaks and has to hire outside contractors.
Only a socialite city planner and billionaire mayor could push a tsunami of development on OLD New York's infrastructure.
Yeah, that all sounds about right.
The fault is not with the politicians, but the preservation community –
it is a dirty secret that nothing gets done even though we clearly see what the problems are because the people that live in the protected districts –
landmarked, good community boards, sensible news coverage on developer outrages –
are the very people who are benefiting from the destruction of our communities.
Take a look where the bankers, building owners, architects live.
Take a look at those who live that benefit from shoehorning the clueless into communities with inadequate infrastructure or own businesses where these people are exploited.
Take a look at where the people live who work for think tanks like Pratt, shape preservation agendas like MAS, run preservation organizations like HDC or staff EDC and city planning.
They will do virtually nothing to help us or get useful information out to us.
Besides, take a look at statistics on who Manhattan is getting wealthier, whiter, and less immmigrant. I guess they think the shit has to go somewhere an your neighborhood is just the place!
Meanwhile,
denied access to useful information on how to stop this, and with resistance either bought off or marginalized,
facing press coverage that borders on the criminal with distortions and outright lies,
venal community boards,
and politicians who know how to play a community like a violin,
the rest of us have an impossible task with the struggle of trying to stop the flood of development that is both displacing as well as destroying our communities.
for what it's worth, i was at the sunnyside rezoning meeting, and have been involved in the process.
we asked van bramer to do what he could to stop the building of out-of-character buildings. as we understood it in the meeting, and as the land use committee has stated, the new zoning does all it can to prevent more "queens crap" from being built.
in my emails to his office and the zoning committee, i referenced the work this site has done in calling residents' attention to the issue. unfortunately, there's little the community board or land use committee can do outside of making it architecturally difficult to build anything over a certain number of stories, with a certain density.
we hope what they've laid out works. we've worked hard to help build it, too. but they've been very transparent and iterative with our community.
that said, until there are laws against building ugly buildings, we need to keep the pressure on. keep up the good work, crappers!
myth
we hope what they've laid out works.
REALITY
AH-OH, THERE IS THAT DIRTY WORD 'HOPE' AGAIN. IF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT CITY PLANNING, IT WILL 'WORK' ALRIGHT...FOR THE DEVELOPERS
myth
but they've been very transparent and iterative with our community.
REALITY
YER FIRST REZONING, EH PROBIE?
myth
that said, until there are laws against building ugly buildings, we need to keep the pressure on. keep up the good work, crappers!
REALITY
NO ONE HAS KEPT THE PRESSURE ON ANYONE IN QUEENS - EXCEPT THE MIDDLE CLASS HOMEOWNER THAT EVERY DAY IS ASSULTED BY NEW DEVELOPMENT.
IF YOU SO LIKE VAN BRAMER, I WOULD SUGGEST YOU ASK HIM TO INTRODUCE LEGISLATION ON STOPPING BUILDING WHILE ZONING IS GOING ON.
OH, YES, HOW ABOUT A NEEDS STUDY FOR THE CURRENT POPULATION?
OH SHUCKS, HOW ABOUT THE COST TO TAXPAYERS FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE ON ALL THOSE NEW BUILDINGS?
Mighty John Young and Penny Lee both need to pay the piper.
Its about time they both dance to our tune.
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