City Council members criticized the de Blasio administration last week for concentrating neighborhood rezonings in low-income, minority neighborhoods—yet the council itself is fueling the trend.
“It doesn’t seem like [City Planning] has a citywide plan to address the housing crisis,” Councilman Antonio Reynoso, D-Brooklyn, said at a budget hearing Thursday. “It feels like [the city] has a piecemeal approach of going into poor neighborhoods and rezoning them.”
The administration’s plan is to rezone 15 neighborhoods where boosting the allowable size of buildings is supposed to trigger development with affordable housing. So far, the administration has completed the task in Brooklyn’s East New York, Far Rockaway in Queens and East Harlem. The city shortly will approve the Jerome Avenue corridor in the Bronx and has several more in its sights.
But these neighborhoods are not chosen based only on planning principles or to most efficiently ease the housing crunch. Rather, City Planning Director Marisa Lago said at the hearing, City Hall prioritizes areas with amenable council members and neighborhoods.
“Absent community interest, it would be an exercise in futility,” she said.
A willing council member is crucial because the City Council has long deferred to the local member’s wishes when it comes to land use, giving representatives veritable veto power over applications.
5 comments:
It's called hypocrisy!
The city council , by and large, is owned by the real estate industry which feeds them their political campaign contributions.
Up zoning low income , or ghetto, nabes is a by the book form of ethnic cleansing.
Drive out the "undesirable" poor folk...or people of color. Move in the yuppies and hipsters.
Get it now? It's simple enough to see.
Make up your F**king minds city council. When you make a decision, stick with it and be firm.
“It doesn’t seem like [City Planning] has a citywide plan to address the housing crisis,” Councilman Antonio Reynoso, D-Brooklyn, said at a budget hearing Thursday. “It feels like [the city] has a piecemeal approach of going into poor neighborhoods and rezoning them.”
Then why did you cast a vote for it in the affirmative? Are you so high on the scent of your own bullshit that you forgot about the public record?
I laughed til I almost puked when I saw Reynoso's self-righteous blathering. It's understandable since this guy has been so busy pandering to hipshit musicians and bar owners to get a night mayor to kowtow to their every need and hipshit bikers who don't want to wait for red lights.
Now he's starting to hear it from his angry constituents in Bushwick and Ridgewood. He should be tar and feathered and thrown into Newton Creek for selling them out.
It should be noted that Corey Johnson as expected as become a toadying fraud doing the mayor's, but mostly REBNY's bidding. These are liberals mind you. They purport to be on the side of the poor and working class and shout about inequity. They have betrayed them and the rest of citizenry.
"Rather, City Planning Director Marisa Lago said at the hearing, City Hall prioritizes areas with amenable council members and neighborhoods.
A willing council member is crucial because the City Council has long deferred to the local member’s wishes when it comes to land use, giving representatives veritable veto power over applications."
On the face of it if true, then as described, the process is working as it should, but the missing gear is: who turns the local councilperson towards yay or nay? It should be the community..but probably in many cases is big RE $'s.
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