Queens Chronicle
Paul Graziano lives in Flushing, but he had a direct message Monday night for his neighbors in Forest Hills.
“We
are the target of City of Yes,” said Graziano, a planning and land use
expert, said to a room of more than 200 people at an emergency town hall
meeting of the Forest Hills Community and Civic Association. “The
intent of City of Yes is to eliminate owner-occupied housing and replace
it with rental units ... The aim, essentially, is to allow developers
to build whatever they want as of right.”
City of Yes is a
three-pronged initiative from the Adams administration which the Mayor’s
Office said will reduce carbon emissions, stimulate jobs and businesses
and increase the construction of housing.
The carbon portion was approved by the City Council in December.
The
reasons for Monday’s emergency meeting, according to civic President
Claudia Valentino, were the city’s presentation on the economic
development portion to Community Board 6 scheduled for last night, May
8; and a hearing before the City Council on the housing portion on June
4.
Even residents who are not members of the FHCCA turned out in
force at the parish hall of Our Lady Of Mercy Church on Kessel Street. A
good meeting, Valentino said, normally can draw about 50 people.
“They
support City of Yes,” Valentino said of Board 6 leadership. “They
rubber-stamped [the carbon emissions portion] without our approval.”
She told Monday’s crowd that they needed an equally strong turnout at Wednesday’s CB 6 meeting.
Valentino
dislikes numerous aspects of the economic development and housing
plans, pointing out they would allow businesses to open in residential
neighborhoods where they cannot now, and could allow massive apartment
buildings in single-family home neighborhoods.
“It’s
complicated,”she said of the proposals running more than 1,000 pages
apiece. “You’re not expected to dig through it ... That’s deliberate.”
She
had letters ready for signatures to Councilwoman Lynn Schulman
(D-Forest Hills) demanding that all present one- and two-family housing
zones must remain in place; that corner stores not be allowed in those
same neighborhoods among other things.
Graziano
pointed out that most of the community boards in the city, and all but
three in Queens, including CB 6, have voiced opposition to City of Yes
thus far.
“They never mention that,” he said of the
administration. He and Valentino counseled residents to not just accept
City of Yes as a fait accompli. Valentino said she heard the same thing
25 years ago when residents and the city told her she could not succeed
in downzoning large swaths of residential neighborhoods in Forest Hills.
“They forgot about me,” Valentino said of administration officials. “Unluckily for them, I didn’t die. I know what I’m doing.”
Queens Chroncle
Hundreds of people were in attendance at a City of Yes housing presentation at Cambria Heights Library last Saturday.
Throughout
the forum Paul Graziano, an urban planner, said the city is actively
trying to destroy single-family zoning through upzoning, to make way for
dense multifamily buildings.
Graziano said approximately 50
percent of single-family housing throughout Queens, Staten Island,
Southern and Central Brooklyn and Northern and East Bronx would be
impacted by the city “eliminating” existing zoning.
According
to stats from Graziano, while the Big Apple is the largest big city by
population — more than 8.3 million — it has the smallest share of
single-family homes — 15 percent — across the country. In comparison,
LA, second in terms of population — over 3.8 million — is 75 percent
single-family homes. Washington, DC, has a population of 670,050 but
double the single-family homes in New York.
Graziano was thankful
to Assemblymembers Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), Nily Rozic (D-Fresh
Meadows) and Alicia Hyndman (D-Springfield Gardens), along with state
Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Jamaica), who prevented a state version of the
housing plan to get through in 2022. He now wants to raise awareness
about Mayor Adams’ housing plans, which he said also would push through
transit-oriented development, more mandatory inclusionary housing,
town-centered housing units, religious housing and legalized accessory
dwelling units.
“The electeds here were some of the hardest
fighters in shutting that down,” Graziano said. “They essentially walked
out of [budget] negotiations and [Hochul] dropped everything.”
Graziano
said Queens folks should leverage the 2025 election to get municipal
leaders to say no to City of Yes, Adams’ rezoning plan. Residents, who
fought since 2004 to stop overdevelopment in residential communities,
approved downzoning plans for the neighborhood and now the city is
pushing against the interest of the people.
“This administration
has stated publicly that lower-density neighborhoods are the cause of
the housing crisis,” said the urban planner. “We have a target on our
backs.”
Graziano also called out mainstream news outlets like the
Daily News, which said in an April 14 editorial that “those who want to
live in a suburb, we’ll remind you there are several in the vicinity of
the five boroughs. This is New York City.”
“If you take our
communities out of the mix, there is virtually no single-family zoning
in the City of New York,” said Graziano. “The transit zone is going to
allow apartment buildings all over the place that is cross-hatched [on a
map he showed]. This is Rosedale, Laurelton, Springfield Gardens,
Addisleigh Park and Queens Village, just a few blocks north of Murdock
[Avenue].”
Low-density
housing areas or commercial buildings with three to five-stories would
be eligible for higher density; more houses will be built by train and
subway stations; basement, attic and garage apartments would be
legalized; religious institutions would be allowed to dedicate parcels
of their land to housing complexes; and much of the proposed
developments would come with little to no parking and take up some green
spaces under Adams’ plan.
“That [plan] just went to the City
Council and they are going to vote on this at the end of the month,”
said Graziano, to the crowd, which also included people and civic
leaders from St. Albans, Rosedale, Queens Village and Bayside. “There is
no affordable housing. [ADUs and TOD would] replace older occupied
homes with market-rate rentals ... There is an affordability thing with
higher density buildings ... but its [virtually] nothing.”