Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Citywide rezoning will screw us all

From Gotham Gazette:

A citywide rezoning proposal quietly released by the de Blasio administration last month has begun the public review process. 'Zoning for Quality and Affordability' sounds like mom and apple pie, as it purports to make new housing less costly and meet higher standards. But a closer examination calls these premises into question. Big real estate, not average New Yorkers, would be the main beneficiary of some of the plan's key provisions, and its cost would be the undoing of neighborhood zoning protections years in the making.

The proposal is quite broad in its scope. But a central element is raising the allowable height of new development in "contextual zoning districts" -- areas where specific height limits and streetwall requirements help ensure that new buildings fit their context. These rules are meant to keep much of the "sore thumb" development we see around the city from cropping up in residential neighborhoods with strongly defined character, from the Lower East Side to Harlem, Crown Heights to Jackson Heights, the Village to Sunset Park.

Many of these height limits took years of effort by local communities to secure, and often involved compromises and trade-offs with the city and real estate interests to attain modest controls.

Now those rules would be upended, with the height caps lifted by as much as 20 to 30 percent, across the board.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate Deblasio!! Everyone Who Voted For this Piece Of trash OR Who Didn't Vote At all Is to blame for this mess!! I damn well know that I didn't vote for this piece of trash!!

Anonymous said...

Stop the over developement. How dare the City try any sort of rezoning. The City needs to get it's DOB sorted out first.

We can't keep track of all the slumlords, illegal construction, illegal rentals and whorehouses as it it.

So the city figures out ways to build more? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The city needs to clean house in the DOB before doing anything.

Anonymous said...

Add this frightening link to your worries

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/tdr/tdr-1.shtml

Anonymous said...

Deblasio is sleeping on this issue. You have to follow the $ trail and see that L&M Development one of the worst landlord, developers in NYC keeps getting contracts. There is no checks or balances - it's the tale of 2 cities in the mayors office.

Anonymous said...

as Churchill might have said.."this is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning"

Anonymous said...

I'm going to build the first 3 family home in whitestone!!!

Anonymous said...

What the hell can DeBlaz do without your councilman?

You people always let the real problem off the hook as you fruitlessly chase after a higher up.

Go ... after ... your ... councilman.

This means writing letters to the press mentioning them by name and asking them if they serve their communities or campaign donors.

About a dozen letters like that made public and this will vanish.

Put those letters in the Queens weeklies (and raise holy hell on Crappie if they do not get published) Put them in your homeowners association , your senior center newsletter, anyplace you can slam your councilman by name.

They go apeshit because they have a childlike believe that you actually like them despite all the abuse they heap on you.

Go for the jugular people. This is a democracy.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the posts about DOB. Developers do whatever they want because DOB plan examiners are either corrupt or too stupid to see that numbers do not add up....and may I add that inspectors are blind?

Jerry Rotondi, BFHA member said...

A proposed 20 to 30 percent increase in height requirements...that means that our current mayor is far worse than Bloomberg. At least we knew that Mayor Mike was for the patrician class and made no pretense about it. We have in de Blasio a wolf in sheep's garb. He pretends to be a La Gaurdiesque man of the people. In fact he is owned by the real estate industry. He ain't my "home boy". He's REBNY's (Real Estate Board of New York). Queens Civic Congress had better inject themselves with a super vitamin and wake up. Every civic group in NYC had better fight this elimination of contextual zoning or plan on moving to the Dakotas or Montana. I wonder how "my own" councilman, Paul Vallone , feels about all of this skullduggery . He is, after all, a lobbyist for real estate developers.

The Whitestone Walyo said...

Agreed! Squeeze you councilman's nuts. If he is a she...tweek her tits good and hard! Here's the way it works folks. The mayor has no power without YOUR council member. Your Councilmember has no real power without your consent. GET INVOLVED or go take a long nap. BUT, when you wake up, your nabe will not look the same!

Anonymous said...

How dare the city try any rezoning? Robert Moses did exactly that with his 1961 zoning resolution. We are still trying to dig ourselves out of that one. Contextual zoning was a big battle won against this egotistical mega monster. Now the years of careful knitting is being unraveled. If you let the fat cats pull on that wool strand, there will be no more warm sweater left to wear next winter. Act now! Act up! The predators are eager for their leg of lamb.

Anonymous said...

BFHA better get off their butts and get their landmark district. If Paul Vallone won't listen to you, then surround his office. Hold a press conference. The nabe has already overwhelmingly supported the creation of a historic district for Broadway Flushing. It is Vallone's job to help deliver it. No time for politeness or polite suggestions from Vallone. Less high tea...cakes and finger food ....and a lot more activism.

Anonymous said...

They all voted for the Blas, because Quinn was a demon servant of developers. So you go from a hissy fit throwing dyke on a rampage to a finnocchio mayor that wakes up late. His wife has the pair. She is running his show. Dante gives mom some suggestions.

Anonymous said...

Multi family homes will generate more revenue for the city and that money keeps the Dependent Class hooked on voting Demacrat.
How long before Section 8 becomes a reality in Whitestone?

Anonymous said...

Ha! Everyone on this website voted for him-- remember all the Bloomberg hating? My how quickly they forget. C'mon Crappy-- No Second Term! No Second Term!

Anonymous said...

They all voted for the Blas, because Quinn was a demon servant of developers. So you go from a hissy fit throwing dyke on a rampage to a finnocchio mayor that wakes up late. His wife has the pair. She is running his show. Dante gives mom some suggestions.

Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council - Its the fault of city council -

there, even a politician could get it.

Anonymous said...

Quote: "voted for the Blas, because Quinn was a demon servant of developers"

-Doubt it, voters in Queens are to stupid to know that, the vote buy what they see in photos and on TV. Quinn came off as a vile was pushy militant lesbian who turned off male voters.
Blaz won because Quinn lost to many he black and the straight male vote.
Now none of this matters. NYC is destroyed and will be Democrat until the whole nation follows and collapses.
Between Obama, his America hating democrats attempting to turn us into another northern Europe with mud immigration, zero border security and liberal bullshit it wont take long.

Anonymous said...

Don't assume that everyone voted for DeBlasio. I voted Republican even though I knew it was a lost cause. No way would I vote for those Democratic POS.

Missing Foundation said...

NYC is destroyed and will be Democrat until the whole nation follows and collapses.



The Democratic Party is doing everything it can to destroy its base. Clinton is no Roosevelt or even Kennedy. DeBlas is an idiot dancing in the clothes of giants. The efforts that the party represents is exhausted and needs a reset.

The problem is that the Republicans are stuck in the pre-Civil War era and pander to the ignorant that still think the sun goes around the earth.

The night is darkest just before sunrise. People, we are living in interesting times. There is going to be some big things just around the corner.

JQ said...

The die was cast for New New York. The Blaz was Bruce Ratner's personal advocate long before his pose as a crusader for the proletariat.

I for one didn't vote for him, because of his ties with the Rat and also using his hipster kids in his ads, which had the feel of a network's promotion of a lame sitcom.

And as with the last mayor, a false philanthropist if there ever was one, the blaz is using the same stealth tactics to realize his vision for housing and utopian density with the help of yet another submissive brownnose cabinet and speaker who is quite the cheapskate property owner herself.

These people are sociopathic creeps. This scheme comes on the heels of dropping homeless shelters on less hip towns in Queens(think Glendale,Far Rock and of course the Pan American) without the input of the residents. So sadly, this is not a surprise.



Anonymous said...

Voting Republican in Queens is like believing you can win the mega millions lottery. If I want to jerk off, I sit on the commode and go at it. At least I get some satisfaction.