![]() All - This is it. The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity City Council hearing is less than two weeks away. We must stop this disastrous proposal from becoming law in any way shape or form. Our coalition – made up of civic, homeowner, cooperative, tenant associations and umbrella organizations – throughout the city has a new name: S. T. O. P. the City of Yes. STOP THIS OVERDEVELOPMENT PLAN – Say NO to the City of Yes! From October 15th through the 22nd, we will be having a series of meetings, events, rallies & press conferences and ending with testimony at the City Council. Here’s the calendar: Tuesday, October 15th, 2024, 7:30pm: Queens Civic Congress Zoom meeting/City of Yes strategy session. All civics across the city are invited to attend – link at the bottom of this email: Wednesday, October 16th, 2024, 11am: WBAI (99.5 FM) show Living For the City with host Michael G. Haskins will interview Paul Graziano on the dangers to our communities of Mayor Adams’s City of Yes for Housing Opportunity if adopted. Wednesday, October 16th, 2024, 4pm: Brooklyn Rally and Press Conference – 3000 Fillmore Street at Marine Park Thursday, October 17th, 2024, 3pm: Bronx Rally and Press Conference – 778 Castle Hill Avenue in front of CM Farias’s District Office Thursday, October 17th, 2024, 5pm: Queens Rally and Press Conference – Southern Field at North Conduit Avenue & 115th Street Saturday, October 19th, 2024, 12pm: Staten Island Rally and Press Conference – Hylan Blvd & Tysens Lane in front of Bank of America Monday, October 21st, 2024, 1pm: Rally and Press Conference at the south end of City Hall Park Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024, 9:30am Start Time: Testify at City Council Hearing on the City of Yes! Those testifying in person will go first; those testifying by Zoom or phone will start testifying at 1pm at the earliest As I’ve said before – let’s kill this thing. Hope to see you all over the next 10 days! Best, Paul Save1familyny.org Queens Civic Congress Zoom meeting links: Topic: QCC General Meeting Time: Oct 15, 2024 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84858258357?pwd=H5bLrF7Hu9Ox0BjOFEE8sOlA3Hrcnp.1 Meeting ID: 848 5825 8357 Passcode: 771500 One tap mobile +16469313860,,84858258357#,,,,*771500# US +16468769923,,84858258357#,,,,*771500# US (New York) Dial by your location • +1 646 931 3860 US • +1 646 876 9923 US (New York) Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1DdaSFEa
City of Yes is a plan BY developers and FOR developers. That sums it up. Let's kill this thing.
Who: S.A.V.E. 1-Family New York (the Statewide Alliance Vs. Elimination of 1-Family Zoning in New York) and allied organizations
What: A major press event with our coalition members and allies in opposition to Mayor Adams’ City of Yes package of proposals, currently going through the ULURP process. Where: City Hall Park (southern end) New York, NY 10007 When: Friday, May 31st, 2024 at 11am Summary: Mayor Adams is attempting to radically change the land use and zoning policies in New York City through the adoption of the City of Yes package of proposals. These proposals are going through the ULURP process despite a purposefully misleading and legally deficient Environmental Impact Statement filed by the Department of City Planning. Mayor Adams would achieve this through an extensive list of proposals, including but not limited to:
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The NY State Legislature finalized their negotiations and voted on Governor Hochul’s omnibus budget bill at the end of April. The outcome of the issues that we are concerned about was, to put it mildly, a mixed bag. One thing that I didn’t mention before was the push to get rid of the Statewide FAR (Floor Area Ratio) cap which has long been at a 12.0, meaning that if you have a 10,000 square foot property and are in a zone that allows for a 12.0 FAR, you can have 120,000 square feet of building space. The budget bill included legislation to change that number to a maximum 18.0 FAR which is a massive increase in buildable square footage wherever this would be adopted. This dovetails with the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal, which would introduce to new zones above the current maximum – R10 – and allow a 15.0 FAR at R11 and an 18.0 FAR at R12. These zones would have to be mapped in order to allow this, but clearly this is the intent. That being said, here are the outcomes for the three other pieces mentioned above: -ADUs – the State Legislature agreed to create an “opt-in” incentive program to allow all municipalities throughout New York State to have the ability to create local legislation with a small amount of state funding connected to it. While this program was created with the intention of helping smaller communities upstate that are interested in legalizing ADUs, we already have reports from places in Westchester, including the City of Yonkers, that are looking to tap into this program. In addition, New York City, while not interested in the funding stream connected to it, has ADUs as a centerpiece in the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. -Basement / Cellar Apartments – hand in hand with ADUs, Governor Hochul and her allies in the State Legislature placed great pressure on legislators to support a blanket legalization of basement and cellar apartments in New York City. The basement / cellar apartments, along with ADUs, are a key component of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity and Mayor Adams and Department of City Planning Chair Dan Garodnick were lobbying hard for citywide adoption. However, numerous Assemblymembers from areas all over the city balked at this, particularly outside of Manhattan. Therefore, a compromise was reached: a pilot program was created and was only mapped in Community Boards where an Assemblymember was in favor. In addition, it could still be overturned if the Community Board itself and/or the representative Councilmember were opposed to it and voted against the pilot program within 90 days. Currently, the Community Boards where it is mapped (but not yet implemented) are: Bronx CBs 9, 10, 11 & 12: Brooklyn CBs 4, 10, 11 & 17; Manhattan CBs 2, 3, 9, 10, 11 & 12; and Queens CB 2. If you are opposed to basements and cellars having the ability to be legalized and are located in any of these boards, we urge you to contact your Community Boards and Councilmembers to vote NO. -High-Density Development for Religiously-Owned Property in Low-Density Areas of NY – this proposed bill was removed from Governor Hochul’s budget bill one week prior to adoption, as (once again) she attempted to violate the New York State Constitution by creating zoning mandates that would allow any property owned by any religious organization to build housing at a higher density than whatever local zoning it was located in throughout the state. While this action was withdrawn at the state level, it has been reintroduced into the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which will allow all property owned by religious organizations in lower density zones to build at Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) zoning densities and heights, regardless of whether they are located in one. Giving preferential treatment to properties based upon ownership may violate the New York City Charter as well as violate the New York State Constitution. All of this now-active legislation is specifically geared towards the densification of lower-density neighborhoods in New York City, dovetailing directly with the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. In order for our communities to survive, we must stop Mayor Adams and his administration from passing and implementing these proposed changes to our existing zoning. All -
At the Queens Civic Congress Biennial Luncheon this past Sunday, I presented our potentially grim future if Mayor Adams' City of Yes for Economic & Housing Opportunity becomes law. The video presentation can be found here: Say NO to the City of Yes At our event, our representatives from the NY State Assembly and Senate stated they were pleased to announce that "ADUs [Accessory Dwelling Units] had been removed from the budget entirely." The attendees, which included officers and members from over 60 civic and homeowner associations as well as other organizations from all over Queens, gave a loud round of applause and breathed a sigh of relief. This morning, I discovered that not only have ADUs *not* been stripped from the budget, they have been included as an "opt-in" incentive program for all municipalities STATEWIDE, including NYC. There is absolutely no question that if there is an ability for NYC to "opt-in" then the Adams Administration will do it, as it is a large part of their City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan to allow ADUs on every one and two-family property across the city. In addition, I was told that the Legislature is still considering legalizing basement and cellar apartments across the city. A process would be created that would allow basement and cellar apartments by Community Board area; each Community Board and their elected representatives (City Council, Assembly and Senator) would vote to decide if they want to allow the legalization of basement and cellar apartments in their Community Board. If they vote YES, then basement and cellar apartments would be allowed. Finally, there is a move to give religious organizations the ability to build high-density apartment buildings on land that they own in low-density areas STATEWIDE. They would allow up to 50 units per acre (similar to the Hochul's Housing Compact from last year) and would be exempt from local land use regulations. Similar to last year, this proposal would violate the Home Rule section of the NY State Constitution by mandating this in every municipality. These are disastrous proposals and they are currently in the omnibus budget bill, which is in its FINAL NEGOTIATIONS. Please contact your Assemblymember and Senator IMMEDIATELY to tell them that these provisions MUST BE STRIPPED FROM THE BUDGET NOW. Thank you, Paul Graziano
The ‘City of Yes – Housing Opportunity’ citywide zoning and land use proposal will not just create “a little more housing in every neighborhood” as Mayor Adams has stated, or “gentle density” in low-density neighborhoods as the Department of City Planning (DCP) has suggested.
Rather, it will thoroughly gut the entire system of land use that has allowed neighborhoods around the city to grow in logical and predictable ways for over six decades, as per the longstanding goal of the DCP. Apparently, the new leadership at City Hall has had both collective amnesia of past actions and a new agenda that is a direct existential threat to the basic survival of our collective communities. This proposal does not consider the carefully negotiated rezonings of the past 20 years that have occurred throughout the city – rezonings that encouraged significantly more development in some places while contextualizing new development in others to protect neighborhood character while promoting orderly growth. The ‘City of Yes – Housing Opportunity’ proposal would throw all of that away in order to: 1) Create massive and unsustainable increases in density across the board in every lower-density (R1 through R5) neighborhood; 2) Utterly ignore transportation needs and trends, particularly in lower-density neighborhoods far from transit linking to Manhattan; 3) Exponentially increase the stress on infrastructure and public resources, of which it makes no mention; 4) Deny actual housing affordability of any kind, despite constant buzz words and meaningless rhetoric sprinkled throughout the document; 5) Purposefully replace communities with high levels of owner-occupied housing in order to “free up” land for developers to build market-rate, high- density rental units for their profit. 6) Severely compromise the democratic process in future land use decisions by communities and their elected officials through the massive expansion of as-of-right development and limiting of ULURP. While this brief study focused solely on the five main points of the ‘City of Yes – Housing Opportunity’ – Accessory Dwelling Units; Transit-Oriented Development; “Town Center” Zoning; the Rewriting of Basic Zoning Regulations; and elimination of parking requirements – there are dozens of other proposed zoning changes that, collectively, will also cause extensive damage to our communities. The best solution is for ‘City of Yes – Housing Opportunity’ to be withdrawn by DCP prior to certification. Final Note: The ‘City of Yes – Economic Opportunity’ citywide zoning and land use proposal was certified on October 30, 2023. This portion of the “City of Yes” has not been discussed at length in the public realm. There are deeply concerning changes that are being proposed that will have wide-ranging negative impacts should they be adopted. In addition, much of the framework for “Housing Opportunity” will be put into place if “Economic Opportunity” is made into law. Here are just a few of the proposed changes to our zoning: 1) Allow (by CPC authorization) retail and office commercial development up to 2500 sf within 100’ of a corner in all residential zones; 2) Allow (by BSA authorization) commercial development to routinely double in size; 3) Change “home offices” from occupying a maximum of 25% or 500 sf (whichever is less) of a primary residence to 49% with no maximum – and up to 3 employees; 4) Reorganizing Use Groups from 18 categories to 10, allowing more noxious uses within our communities; 5) Reorganizing Commercial Zoning to essentially allow much broader uses in all neighborhood commercial strips. These changes – and many more – will not foster positive change in our neighborhoods. Instead, it will deregulate our entire land use process and allow commercial development everywhere, which is not appropriate or welcome. For our communities to truly survive and thrive, the ‘City of Yes – Economic Opportunity’ must be voted down in total.
Dear Friends,
URGENT BREAKING NEWS: WE WON!!!!!!
Needless to say, this is a GREAT VICTORY FOR ALL OF US!
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN. Obviously, we will remain ever vigilant, as we can be sure that – in the long run – there will continue to be those who wish to destroy our communities for the sake of profit, not false promises of affordable housing and equity. Now is the time for *all of us* to start sitting down with our municipalities, elected officials, stakeholders and other interested parties to discuss a *real* way to both carefully plan growth for our cities, towns and villages when necessary and maintain quality of life and intact communities. And, let’s all make sure that, if possible, this never, ever happens again. Best, Paul Graziano save1familyny.org Op-Ed: Gov. Hochul’s “Housing Compact” Will Destroy Homeownership & Communities in Southeast Queens3/28/2023
For decades, Southeast Queens has been held up as a model of the American Dream for those striving for a better life. Our communities in Southeast Queens have more than 220,000 residents claiming African American and Caribbean American heritage, many of whom themselves (or their parents and grandparents) left other denser parts of the city – often at greater cost and expense than most other ethnic groups in the city – to have some breathing room, own their own home, a backyard, grass and trees and to give their children a better life.
From Hillside Avenue to JFK Airport, Lefferts Blvd. to the Nassau County line, our mostly suburban neighborhoods have survived and thrived despite systemic racism and redlining. We cherish our low-density communities in Southeast Queens, and we have consistently defended our detached one-family zoning in places like Addisleigh Park, Cambria Heights, Hollis, Jamaica, Laurelton, Queens Village, Rosedale, St. Albans, South Ozone Park, and Springfield Gardens. Additionally, over 60% of our residents own their own homes, more than double the citywide average. We want to be clear: we are united with all of our neighbors in Queens, Staten Island, the rest of New York City, the suburbs in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and beyond regardless of race, ethnicity or economic background who oppose the “Housing Compact” which, in our estimation, will be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in our communities. Having the Governor mandate more development in southeast Queens, increasing density by 500% within ½ mile of our LIRR stations, forcing increases in housing if we don’t do it ourselves by overriding local zoning, giving blanket amnesty to dangerous and deadly basement and cellar apartments – these are extinction level policies that will wipe out our neighborhoods, plain and simple. Most of our elected officials from southeast Queens understand this. Some supporters of Gov. Hochul’s plan, such as Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher of Brooklyn have equated single-family zones with Jim Crow practices, and have deemed the governor's plan as necessary to achieve "racial justice." While historically that is true, it does not apply to our communities in Southeast Queens in 2023. What we’ve achieved over the years is the ability to live the life we want, where we want and how we want. The governor's plan, far from bringing "racial justice" to our black and brown communities in Southeast Queens and other areas, would bring devastation throughout our neighborhoods if implemented. The financial and political gains that African Americans have made in our city, our suburbs and across the State – our top elected officials except for the Governor herself are African American in both the State and the City – all of this will be lost if the “Housing Compact” becomes law. We are the civic leadership of Southeast Queens. We are Black and we are 100% opposed to Governor Hochul’s “Housing Compact” and the attempts to increase density exponentially in our communities. We hope that the Governor and Legislature are listening very carefully. Signed, Addisleigh Park Civic Association Alpha Street Civic Association Brinkerhoff Action Association Eastern Queens Alliance Greater Triangle Civic Association Queens Village Civic Association St. Albans Civic Improvement Association 149th Street South Ozone Park Civic Association 221/222 Street Block Association South Ozone Park Civic Association West Sojourner Truth Democratic Club United Coalition for Veterans & Community Rights (UCVCR) United Neighbors Civic Association (UNCA) Wayanda Civic Association |
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