We need your help. The de Blasio administration is made it obvious that the preservation of New York City’s character is not being considering in their plans for the future. As citizens and organizations who are working to preserve and uplift New York, we need to make the Mayor hear our voices and address our concerns. HDC and our colleagues are planning a press conference next Wednesday at 3pm on the steps of City Hall to express our concerns about the Mayor’s citywide rezoning proposal ‘Zoning for Quality and Affordability’ – an anti-neighborhood proposal which would slash neighborhood zoning protections and lift height limits in both contextual and non-contextual zones. The press conference will be at 3pm and the public hearing on the scoping begins at 4pm at a few blocks away at City Planning, 22 Reade Street.
I’m asking for you help with three things.
1. Please lend your name and support to the attached open letter to the Mayor. Let me know if I can add your organization to the list of supporters. I’m also collecting individual supporters (if so, please tell me which neighborhood you should be identified from). This letter will be going out next week to the Mayor and the press.
2. Please come and participate at the rally on Wednesday 3/25 at 3pm on City Hall steps. We need a good showing to voice our concerns.
3. Testify at the City Planning scoping hearing which starts at 4pm. I have cut and pasted below a template for testimony and/or a letter you can send in (they are accepting comments until April 6). Please let me know if you can testify and/or send in a letter.
It’s vital that we get the message out now that neighborhoods across the City are very concerned about the proposal and the impact it would have, esp. in terms of the lifting of height limits and the way in which this proposal is being rushed through. I hope you can join us.
Best,
Simeon Bankoff
Executive Director
Historic Districts Council
sbankoff@hdc.org
____________________________________
rdobrus@planning.nyc.gov
fax 212-720-3495
Robert Dobruskin, AICP, Director
Environmental Assessment and Review Division
New York City Department of City Planning
22 Reade Street
New York, NY 10007
Re: ‘Zoning for Quality and Affordability,’ CEQR No. 15DCP104Y
Dear Director Dobruskin:
I have several very strong concerns regarding the proposed scope of the environmental review for this application, and urge that the scope be expanded.
First, it is imperative that the scope of the review allow for the possibility of the existing height limits for contextual zones and for the Quality Housing program to remain in place. It is one thing to suppose that the City could benefit from having contextual districts with different height limits than those which currently exist, and to examine where such changes might be appropriate; it is another to retroactively change the existing limits everywhere they currently exist, and eliminate the current limits across the board.
It is also imperative that the scope look at the impact which allowing taller development with greater volumes, as proposed, would have on historic resources, neighborhood character, and shadows, especially in and around parks and other light-sensitive resources. While the Landmarks Preservation Commission would continue to regulate the allowable size of new developments and additions in historic districts, important historic resources also exist outside of designated historic districts. Under this plan, the incentive for demolition of such resources would increase, as would the likelihood of vertical extensions being added. Larger and taller construction in neighborhoods, and especially in areas of historic resources, would in many cases have a negative impact which should be measured. Similarly, the larger, taller buildings allowed under this plan would cast larger shadows, impacting parks, playgrounds, and other light-sensitive sites.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
14 comments:
DiBlazio should be wrapped in 100 lbs of rusty chain and thrown into the
EAST RIVER!!!
What is it with your fixation on the mayor, people? He may set policy, but he would get nowhere without city council.
Mayors come and go, but the Machine is permanent.
Lots of luck. But HDC's voice has rung hollow for years. Money talks and history walks. I have theatre tickets for that date. I'd rather be entertained in high style than listen to anemic speechifying.
The real estate industry runs NYC. It does not matter who is the mayor. Their money elects them all. So where is his loyalty directed to? Surely not the people, but to the. developers. Like it or lump it, that is our lot in life, "Fie, fie, fo, fum. I smell the blood of a preservationist , chum. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread". And so the all powerful developers have spoken.
Yawn, another press conference while the developers are loaded for bear! Is that too negative for you? Yes it is, but that's the plain truth.
The reason why former and present New York City voters no longer have any investment in these public rallies is because they are counterfeit, for all of the above reasons noted by other respondents to this thread. I've been saying it for many years now that the city council is the arbiter of all things fascist! They continue to practice Neo-fascism with a vengeance---and the public be damned. But, I fervently remain in favor of abolishing the council altogether, because it's a working example of a dereliction of public duty, corruption, graft, taxation without representation (not to mention selective and occasional representation, like the kind my troglodyte Councilman Eric Ulrich and his primitive henchmen practice with impunity, as he continues to be vastly overpaid by my tax dollars, but nevertheless rejects helping me since 2010). Likewise, all borough president posts and the public advocate jobs are worthless and only serve to create a patronage mill of useless jobs without purpose and power to adjudicate the many complaints from citizens whom I've known form more than a decade without proper help, acknowledgement and representation---myself included! This is not progress---it's the illusion of progress. New York is a police state of Neo-fascism rule---and it seems to be getting worse by the hour!
Anything associated with HDC/HPD and L&M Development, BFC & Donald Capoccia should be double checked.
Follow the $ trail. Anything affiliated with Ron Moelis should be double checked.
Anything associated with HDC/HPD and L&M Development, BFC & Donald Capoccia should be double checked.
Follow the $ trail. Anything affiliated with Ron Moelis should be double checked.
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I think there's been a major misunderstanding here by some of the posters: HDC is not a government agency, nor is it a developer. It is the Historic Districts Council, a preservation advocacy group!
Whether you believe they are effective or not, they are out there organizing with about 100 other preservation and civic organizations to try to derail this proposed giveaway to developers.
HDC is certainly not a government agency. It has no balls, however. Their "prairie oysters" have been sold at the meat monger's stall long ago. Attend the rally. Spit into the wind and see it hit you back in the face. All of the preservationist groups have either been emasculated or coopted. Concentrate your fight on social media and getting representative elected that truly will represent you not developers.
HDC is certainly not a government agency. It has no balls, however.
Obviously more balls than you, anonymous poster. At least they're trying to make this (up until now) invisible fight more visible in order to try to stop it.
This is so unlike yourself, who hides behind anonymity to lob negative bullshit against people taking on a very bad proposal from DeBlasio and his developer friends.
Way to go, nutbag.
- Bayside homeowner
Have you posted this to #SaveNYC? They are doing great work to save business in NYC. Perhaps they would be interested in this too.
Bayside homeowner: Get a real job. Another social event on the steps of city hall go unnoticed. Which time slot are they squeezed into? A one shot deal does not win the war. Unless you keep the heat on your local council member, this event will be just a fart in a windstorm. And if you are alluding to knowing my identity, you will be surprised to find out you are wrong.
Perhaps his "balls" he has reserved for other purposes. Are you sure that "he" isn't a woman? Only his gynecologist knows for sure.
Bayside homeowner: Get a real job. Another social event on the steps of city hall go unnoticed. Which time slot are they squeezed into? A one shot deal does not win the war. Unless you keep the heat on your local council member, this event will be just a fart in a windstorm. And if you are alluding to knowing my identity, you will be surprised to find out you are wrong.
I don't know who you are and I don't care, but I guess I got under your skin for some reason. That's usually what happens when people believe they are much more important than they actually are.
Negative BS coming from nutbags like yourself is all you have, so go crawl back under your rock, troll.
The rest of us will see whether the rally/press conference at City Hall is successful or not after it happens. My bet is that it has some positive effect and gets the Mayor to back off from his proposal.
- Bayside homeowner
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