Buyers buy little houses with nice-sized yards and cut down old growth trees to stuff oversized houses on the old property. The new houses overshadow the neighboring houses and have little, if any, landscaping. A lot of the times, the trees and grass at the curb are eliminated and the front lawns are paved over to make room for the multiple cars owned by the multiple families living in what used to be one family/one owner houses.
The streets are now crowded with cars and the neighborhood is hotter and noisier due to the loss of noise buffering, cooling trees and bushes in vanishing yards. Rebuilds have less frontage and there's more cement all around. What used to be suburban, is slowly becoming more urban." - anonymous
29 comments:
Many people have dreams of a nice large home in a neighborhood with a good school district that is not to far from where they work...
Didn't Paul G lead a rezoning of eastern queens during the Bloomberg years? I didn't realize Floral Park was left out / opted out.
The sad thing is overdevelopment in eastern queens leads to more cars and that exacerbates so many of our problems -
- paving front lawns overwhelms the sewers,
- more people in those homes increases demand for services we know the govt isn't ready to provide
- More cars means more greenhouse gasses (we saw what happened with Sandy imagine a storm of that magnitude with additional sea level rise)
- Increases traffic and demand for parking.
At least with overdevelopment in Manhattan or hipster Brooklyn, even if subways are crowded there are other options (citibike, walking, taxi, etc)
Big eyesore in my opinion. I like the smaller homes. Have two concrete monsters across the street from my house. Built in 2009. Horrible. Do not fit in this neighborhood of townhouses.
This is what you get when you don't have landmarking, people. Talk to those who live in landmarked districts and they tell you how great it is. No community that was landmarked has ever considered it a mistake.
I think many of these houses are ugly...but...
I don't think it's accurate to say multiple families are living in one home.
If that means, grandparent, parent and grandchildren or adult siblings and all the cousins, that is the same family.
More people living in the same square footage is not necessary a bad thing. The amount of land we have is not increasing but the population is. What is the solution? You have to stick more people in the same amount of space.
But with this wonderful economy you have three adult grown children (each with their own car that you pay for) living in your basement, along with your mother-in-law living in the remodeled garage...
Very often they end up damaging the smaller house's foundation during construction
It's not about the cars. I work on Long Island and live in Queens. There are plenty of people like me that have no other way to get to work. McMansions are an eyesore, but they also affect neighboring homes. We all need sunlight. These homes should be outlawed.
Didn't Paul G lead a rezoning of eastern queens during the Bloomberg years? I didn't realize Floral Park was left out / opted out.
Floral Park was included in the rezoning, which covered everything east of the Cross Island Parkway between the Grand Central Parkway and Jericho Turnpike, as well as a large section to the west of the Cross Island as well.
Here's the link:
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/plans/bellerose-floral-park-glen-oaks/belle_floral.pdf
It was rezoned in June of 2013, so a lot of damage had already been done. However, another thing that needs to be understood is that almost every remaining property is "underbuilt" meaning that the floor area ratio (FAR) of the existing house to the property is significantly lower than the maximum. Most of the housing in Bellerose, Floral Park and Queens Village that was rezoned are between 1,000 and 1,500 square feet on a typical 40' x 100' lot. The R2A zoning which was adopted allows for a 2,000 square foot house on the same lot, plus up to another 300 square feet if you build a garage (the garage square footage is included in the total).
As I've explained previously, the R2A zone is the lowest density category in existence in NYC. The houses which were built prior were using all sorts of exemptions and gimmicks (and sometimes just plain illegally done) to build *even bigger* than what is allowed presently.
This does not make it a panacea by any means - it just creates a less overtly monstrous house. More importantly, the amount of legal cheating has been seriously limited...can't speak to the illegal behavior of builders, though. That's an epidemic which needs serious intervention from law enforcement.
Paul Graziano
After you tour Floral Park take a look at Little Neck. North of LIE to Northern Blvd and Marathon Parkway to Little Neck parkway. -- as soon as a house is sold it is torn down and trees and shrubbery destroyers. The ugliest house are erected asap.
This is mostly the work of immigrants especially in this area 3 or so Indian or Paki family's pool the money together and use the same last name. The city has no verification system nothing !!!
Its not like you can call India or Pakistan on the telephone and ask !!
All them small 1 family houses will be gone soon friggan sad !!.
>No community that was landmarked has ever considered it a mistake.
Until you have to jump through endless absurd hoops to renovate your house. Or you want to sell.
>More people living in the same square footage is not necessary a bad thing. The amount of land we have is not increasing but the population is. What is the solution? You have to stick more people in the same amount of space.
This guy gets it.
More people living in the same square footage is not necessary a bad thing. The amount of land we have is not increasing but the population is. What is the solution? You have to stick more people in the same amount of space.
There are plenty of places in this country (and others) that already have space to accommodate large families that want to live together. There is no need to ruin everyone else's quality of life because one family decides that they must live under the same roof. These large houses block the sunlight for existing residents, the loss of green space burdens the sewage systems, they create more noise and traffic and crowding. Then the residents call the City to complain about the constant flooding and sewage backup. This city has minimal city planning as it is, but then people get to undo it by building these monstrosities for their own convenience? Enough is enough.
NYC Zoning prohibits the complete paving of front yards. It has been illegal to do so for some time now.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/plans/yards/yards.pdf
Talking will get your nowhere.
Everyone - except for the building and their enablers in office - is in agreement on how this destroys communities - long term people move out - hotels (legal and otherwise) move in - and we all know where that leads to.
There is no point in discussing the same things over and over and over.
You need to protect the fabric of the community. Only one thing can save you.
Only Landmark designation can save you.
this is old news. this started in the early 2000's. if you are still in that area expecting anything else you are behind the times. i moved out once they started putting 24 food carts on every corner (not saying a little chicken over rice with white sauce wasn't good at 1 in the morning). the area was changing in the 90s. now it is what it is. I'm pretty sure nobody is moving into that area expecting it to be what it used to be. move along.
More people living in the same square footage is not necessary a bad thing.
Except when the sewer system, especially if it's a combined sewer system, has to suddenly accommodate 36 toilets from one block instead of 12...
A lot of these are being built by Indians. They have a name..."garage mahals"!
These are undersized homes. They were originally sold as "expansion cape cod" homes.
Well, they have been expanded. This has nothing to do with zoning. It has to do with the expandable footprint of these tiny homes.
All single story ranch houses...even in low density zoned neighborhoods....are subject to building up.
I dislike Mc Mansions, but let's face it...these are little ticky tacky boxes.
Wonder how many families live in that ugly thing.
Another example of the destruction of America by foreign "invaders" i.e. the trash of the world. Our once beautiful neighborhoods now severely overcrowded, noisy, littered with garbage. Ruining our parks, roads and municipal services, such as water and sewer which was never built to withstand the extreme population. STOP ALL IMMIGRATION!
We don't need it and haven't for at least a century.
All single story ranch houses...even in low density zoned neighborhoods....are subject to building up.
I dislike Mc Mansions, but let's face it...these are little ticky tacky boxes.
--
as opposed to what - 3rd world palaces or overthetop hipshit nests? every type of home has a place in our world - but we should not let someone else dictate what our community is so they can make money by making a donation to shut up our local public servants.
zoning and landmarking - enforced - is the only thing that can save you.
It's coming everywhere. By now we are well into the McMansion age, and only those old homeowners (70+) can't understand why anyone would want these things. It's what young people want and they are the future. 20-30 years from now it will be the norm in Queens. Just as people no longer wanted Victorians and tore those down after WWII, they are tearing down the colonials and capes, and putting up the McMansions for that live-inside lifestyle. There is no going back.
It's coming everywhere. By now we are well into the McMansion age, and only those old homeowners (70+) can't understand why anyone would want these things. It's what young people want and they are the future. 20-30 years from now it will be the norm in Queens. Just as people no longer wanted Victorians and tore those down after WWII, they are tearing down the colonials and capes, and putting up the McMansions for that live-inside lifestyle. There is no going back.
no its the gaudy rich or 3rd world with poor taste that wants this. they day of breezily making comments like this unchallenged is ending my friend.
putting up the McMansions for that live-inside lifestyle. There is no going back.
You remind me of the average cruise customers who think are millionaires in their flip flops while drinking cheap booze.
Pathetic.
Re:You have to stick more people in the same amount of space.
Having lived in Floral Park for 55 years, I know that comment has no connection to the McMansion issue. Growing-up, most of these houses contained two-parent households with 2-4 kids and sometimes even a grandparent in the house.
I have two idiots on my block, who paved half their front lawns to park cars. This despite the fact they both have 100 feet of driveway/garage, plus room for 2 cars at the curb. Both houses have only TWO cars. They just want to park both right up against the front of the house!
This is all about developers making more money.
This is all about developers making more money.
All the time, all the places. Screw global warming, lets pave everything, concrete instead of grass, stupid shit extra floors, balconies instead of trees, bushes.
Funny how the global climate change crew never mentions the destruction by the so called "developers". Hey money rules!
Stop your dreaming and wasting posts.
These are EXPANDABLE homes and WILL BE!
Save your pennies and move into a landmark district.
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