Some blocks are graced by quaint two-bedroom, one-story rowhouses — with small front yards, tiny porches and peaked roofs. These houses have become the latest focus in a clash throughout New York between homeowners who want to develop their properties to the limits allowed by law, and preservationists lobbying for stronger laws to protect those properties from development.
The preservationists argue that single-family rowhouses imbue some neighborhoods — particularly in Queens — with their essential character. But under existing zoning laws, there is no specific designation for single-family rowhouses that provides protection against increasing the number of units, or against out-of-scale and out-of-character expansions.
“It’s an absolute disgrace,” said Richard Hellenbrecht, the vice president of the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella association of more than 100 community groups. “Lovely, affordable homes being squeezed out by monstrosities.”
The architecture is secondary, said Paul Graziano, an urban planning consultant from Flushing. “What it is is affordable rowhouses of modest means, and for people of modest means.”
“It’s stuff worth protecting,” he said. “We’re talking about the basic character of a neighborhood.”
Ms. Lin — unwittingly, she says — thrust herself into the center of the debate soon after buying her rowhouse at 146-15 56th Road for $558,000 in 2013. She had started to renovate, but quickly determined that it would make more sense financially to tear the house down and build a bigger place.
It also made logistical and emotional sense: She wanted a home big enough to house not only her two young children but also her father and brother.
Melinda Katz, a Democrat and the Queens borough president, has vowed to press for protections for single-family rowhouses.
“The rowhouses and the communities that form around that are so important to our future,” she said in an interview. “We value the low-density portion of our neighborhoods.”
“Where will our parents live when they come over from China?” asked Lin Xin, an employee with a contracting firm that had been involved in several of the projects in Queensboro Hill. “Why do you think we work so hard? Why do we scrimp and save? This is why. We want to be reunited with our families. We want to sit around the same table together.”
17 comments:
"Where will our parents live when they come over from China?” asked Lin Xin, an employee with a contracting firm that had been involved in several of the projects in Queensboro Hill. 'Why do you think we work so hard? Why do we scrimp and save? This is why. We want to be reunited with our families. We want to sit around the same table together.'” . . .
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
. . . and go on the dole with Food Stamps, an EBC, and Medicaid.
They want to be reunited with their families? Then they should have stayed in third world china! This is crap And should be illegal!! Why do our neighborhoods have to suffer so they can bring the whole third world china into our country? You know for a fact that they will keep their parents living with them on their floor and rent out the upstairs to another chinese family and their "reunited" parents! They claim that they work so hard but what about all the people who work so hard to keep their neighborhoods from turning into overdeveloped crap? What about all those people who work so hard to keep the schools from becoming overcrowded? How about the people who work so hard to keep taxes down by putting zoning restrictions on things like this from happening? Without zoning restrictions, we would have to pay more for new schools, more garbage pickup and/or more overtime, more crowded public transportation. This Is not china, we don't like to live on top of other people.....just because you live in nyc, some of us don't want to live on top of others- hence the reason why queens and the "outer boroughs" were formed! If you want overpopulation then move to Manhattan! What a load of garbage!!
It is CRIMINAL that the DOB allow such abuse of building and construction. These people have invested their life savings and made huge commitments to the homes they live in. In one swoop all that is changed and they end up living next door to a monstrosity, their landscaping is worthless and their quality of life and sunshine are hugely compromised.
I applaud Don for standing up and speaking for theses people. What elected official is going to stand with Don and his neighborhood and say ENOUGH!???
As for the Chinese who claim they need room for their parents I have a news flash, you are not the only people with family that you take care of. Many people live with their parents and care for them but guess what? when you are house shopping you take into account you need more room for your parents. You don't go to a block of small capes and take advantage buy purchasing a small house only to knock it down and build a huge brick box. That is not neighborly and you should show respect to your neighbors. Buy a big house to suit your needs by going where the big house are!
This is an egregious example of people not having any respect for a traditional NY neighborhood and the harmony of its architecture. NYC really dropped the zoning ball here - but it's happening all over!
My visiting nephew from Florida, a former NYer, has been admiring the new houses and the shape of our roads - NOT!!!!
He can't believe how ugly and Third World the airport, roads, houses and stores have become! And he was here just two years ago! The ghettoization, or should I say, the Queensification of Queens is marching on at a steady pace!!!
Something better be done....and fast!
"As for the Chinese who claim they need room for their parents I have a news flash, you are not the only people with family that you take care of. Many people live with their parents and care for them but guess what? when you are house shopping you take into account you need more room for your parents. You don't go to a block of small capes and take advantage buy purchasing a small house only to knock it down and build a huge brick box. That is not neighborly and you should show respect to your neighbors. Buy a big house to suit your needs by going where the big house are!"
-Good non-biased point!
There is zero that will stop this-- absent "landmark" designation of a structure. Get used to it. Move now. Sell and run. If you think we're going to hold on to the 1920s-50s single family-garden community-vision of Queens for much longer, especially what remains in western Queens, you are mistaken.
Mon and Dad on the first floor, Junior with his wife and kids on the second floor, and 8 cousins that come home at midnight when the store closes in the basement.
as an employee of one of our fine ny airports i recently was approached by a young college student from Bangladesh who was seeing his parents off as they were flying home after his college graduation. this student spent the last 4 years on the west coast, not really enjoying the diversity this city has to offer. he commented on how this reminded him of the airport at home and didn't think places like this existed in America.
Now we were at a newer terminal at JFK, so its not the Biden infrastructure argument. It was the fact that it was over crowded with people sitting barefoot on the floor eating rice with their hands. its people washing their feet in the same sink you wash your hands with. its stuffing 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag. this city is at its limit.
Tearing down a detached home and replacing it with a Mc Mansion is bad enough. At least these sit on separate plots of land. Destroying the cohesive architecture, however humble it might be, and creating a mega monstrous growth is an abortion. However, and this is the catch, so far it's legal. Unprotected , and most unworthy of landmark status, these small row houses will get expanded. The Brooklyn brownstone row homes need not worry about their extinction. They are already big enough to be two apartments and a lot have exterior landmark designation. There are some Tudor style row houses in Auburndale etc. that do deserve exterior landmark protection. There are many other smaller types , as pictured, throughout Queens that do not. The truth remains. If you anticipate needing a larger home, then buy an expansion cape or a one story ranch house. There are others besides Chinese immigrants who care little for the character of neighborhoods. Look at what Italians and Greeks have done to some formerly gracious nabes.
When my parents got older and needed care, I bought a 2-family house (in a neighborhood that had them). I didn't tear down a perfectly fine one-family house and build an eyesore. Let them go buy a duplex apartment, or better yet, an apartment building. Stop ruining nice little neighborhoods. Leave the hard-working, tax-paying middle class alone to enjoy the homes they worked so hard for. Stop illegally collecting welfare, food stamps and all the other freebies that this country hands out. Better yet, If you miss your country so much, move back there.
When politicians stop taking our bribes then you can tell us what we can build,until then mind your own business or I'll buy the house next to you and build so big you will never see sunshine again 🏯🏯🏯🏡🏯🏯🏯 get it now?
"where are my parents to live"
Bullshit--these people pool their last names & money over in China as "extended family to bring over" --put 30 people named "Lee" (or "Lopez' for that matter) in a big brick box.
The immigration loopholes need to be closed because no verification is possible compounded by the fact Cuba, China, Central America and all the other 3rs world shitholes WANT to ship them here. The asshole mayor also needs to stop ringing the "come and get it" bell at every cesspool on the planet. The city, schools and NYPD is going to burst and go bankrupt.
This isn't California where their is room for all these getovers looking for free stuff.
It's too late for a large part of downtown Flushing...Many of the rowhouses and single family homes have been destroyed and replaced by high rises.
They bring parents over from China to "retire" here. Meaning they get SS and Medicare and all kinds of welfare goodies. They never paid one thin dime into the Social Security system and never paid any taxes here. They are f'n parasites. IT'S A SCAM!!! THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR DECADES
(1) Note the sense of entitlement they have for people not yet in Queens.
All the Queens taxpayer-paid services for food, shelter, healthcare, and other living expenses, and even an NYC ID are available for anyone in the world - and in this case the global Lin family. What a country!
(2) Note the disregard for the character of the neighborhood.
Just because you can tear it down and rebuild to the limit allowed by law, should you? If your plan was to live together as an extended family, why not buy a house already the size you required in the first place?
This is a city that is constantly expanding. Rows of ticky tacky arch and cape burger houses , as well as small row houses, will be expanded.
RBNY has more juice than anyone. These were not the best nabes to live in when they were built. But filling up the sky plane with taller, towers crap encloses us in canyons of poorly designed bigger stuff. The original row houses were boxy nothing's. At least they were in scale.
Post a Comment