Legislation To Boost Community-Based Planning
A new law is going to be introduced to the City Council that may radically alter how planning initiatives like rezonings are undertaken in New York City. The legislation, which is a byproduct of the Municipal Arts Society’s longstanding Campaign for Community-Based Planning, will seek to extend the influence of 197-a plans, which are produced…
A new law is going to be introduced to the City Council that may radically alter how planning initiatives like rezonings are undertaken in New York City. The legislation, which is a byproduct of the Municipal Arts Society’s longstanding Campaign for Community-Based Planning, will seek to extend the influence of 197-a plans, which are produced by communities in order to influence the shape of things to come in their neighborhoods. “Through extensive public outreach and community deliberation, 197-a plans establish a guide for city agencies to act by articulating a wide range of community priorities,” says Planning spokesperson Jennifer Torres. “Throughout the city…197-a plans have resulted in actions that reflect the community’s vision.” Be that as it may, in real life 197-a’s have zero legislative weight. “197-a has been flawed because it’s basically the city saying that neighborhoods can have a say in development but in fact it has no force of law,” says Queens Councilman Tony Avella, who will be one of the lawmakers introducing the bill. “A good example of this is that the Council recently voted to approve Columbia’s expansion, which contradicts the neighborhood’s 197-a.” (Brooklyn 197-a’s include those that have already been adopted for Red Hook, Williamsburg and Greenpoint, as well as one that’s in the works in Sunset Park.)
The legislation would “affect the whole constellation of city planning initiatives,” says Eve Baron, director of the Municipal Arts Society’s Planning Center. Baron says that “on paper, 197-a is great because it’s community-initiated and consensus driven” and “a way to say, “‘This is our vision for the future of the neighborhood, based on need and aspiration.'” The problem is not with 197-a’s intended purpose, she notes, but with its efficacy. “While it’s potentially a great tool, it’s ultimately only an advisory document,” she notes. Baron says the Campaign for Community-Based Planning also wants to right some of the perceived problems with 197-a, including the fact that there’s no central pool of funding available for neighborhoods to draw on when they want to develop them and that while 197-a’s tend to be driven by community boards, CBs may or may not represent all the interests in a given area. Avella says he’s ironing out the legalese in the bill now and hopes to introduce it to the Council by summer. “There’s going to be a fight over this since the real estate industry controls this town, and they’re not going to be happy about anything that might limit their ability to build and make money,” he says. “This’ll be a way to have planning happen from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.”
Campaign for Community-Based Planning [Municipal Arts Society]
197-a [NYC.gov]
It’s all a big charade. You can all just flush those 11 years of well thought out planning down the toilet, cause the developers with the help of the city will trample all over those 256 pages.
Unless we start asking for heads on a platter these slime (developers and bureaucrats alike) will continue to take us for a ride. Perfect example – While she was Boro Commissioner at DOB, Susan Hinkson allowed the total destruction of Brooklyn. What was her punishment? She was given a better job at the BSA. Where she now has the opportunity to push through all the illegal buildings that she allowed to start in the first place. She along with Lancaster should be in jail. Until we start treating people like the criminals that they are we are all just pawns in their game.
ah the keyword here is “sensible”. No one could have conceived of just how much innappropriate development would be taking place. Nor how much greed would be driving development.
“Action Jackson, the only entities that can propose 197-a plans are the mayor, City Planning Commission, Department of City Planning, borough president, and borough and community boards.”
I stand corrected. I meant to say private groups can submit Via the above venues.
Zach, Streetsblog? Sorry, wrong dude, rarely read the thing, let alone post.
Perhaps I have a twin out there in the blogosphere. That, or somewhat has sniped my handle.
Send a link to a thread…
And I can see your POV on “downzoning,” that’s why I have always called it “rezoning,” since sensible higher density is needed in the city.
g_man, “helpful?” Yes, but the vision in the Greenpoint and Williamsburg 197-a plans is considerably different than what the Department of City Planning dumped on the neighborhoods.
Zach, the 197-a plans pre-date the Bloomberg administration and the re-zoning.
Action Jackson, the only entities that can propose 197-a plans are the mayor, City Planning Commission, Department of City Planning, borough president, and borough and community boards.
The smaller the buildings and less construction the fewer jobs there will be. Construction jobs are huge in providing income for a lot of New Yorkers. Also architects, interior designers, engineers, suppliers of the building materials, furniture manufacturers and retailers, craftspeople, plumbers, electricians, on and on and on. It’s these very revenues that give us such low property taxes. Do you REALLY want to pay $18,000 to $20,000 a year property taxes like they do in small downzoned NIMBY towns with no construction or manufacturing companies? How on earth does that provide affordable housing?
It’s absurd to only ever think about aesthetics.
Hey, ActionJ, nice to see you outside Streetsblog. I think the trend in CBs for the last several years can basically be summed up by the word “downzoning”. While it’s not a bad thing to have community involvement, everyone will vote themselves parks and brownstones and single-family houses if you give them the option. There’s a trend to yell about “neighborhood character” and use it as a buzzword for anything more than one story taller than existing development. It’s a disaster for affordability to have the level of stasis that the CBs agitate for.
g-man: That plan was before my time in the neighborhood, although yeah it’s not a bad one. But that plan was a compromise between the relentless community yells about massive affordable housing subsidies and Doctoroff’s whole “build everything everywhere” camp, right? Neither plan was very promising, and now the CB is angry about all the construction that followed the rezoning.
“they don’t need more power than they already have”
1:15pm, who are you referring to? DCP or CBs?
CBs are advisory only, remember that.
And to 12:36pm’s “yuck” comment, you are correct…people SIGN UP and then APPOINTED (this is not a free for all) by local electeds and the Borough Pres. Generally they are folks that are thought of to be representative of the community and actively want to better their communities through the facilitation a Board can have through City Govt.
So, I’m not getting your POV? Besides, any public or private entity can submit a 197-a plan to DCP. So let’s get back on point and away from the whole CB thing.
Until someone can bring up something better (electeds or not), the 197-a option is at least a away for public input into what DCP may or may not due.
If they were highly thought of and helpful, 12:45, then they don’t need more power than they already have.
Zach, you write “I’ve been to my share of CB meetings (Brooklyn 1 and Manhattan 9). 197-a is a *disaster*.” I thought that the 197-a plans written by Brooklyn 1 were highly thought of and helpful in standing up to the Department of City Planning when it rezoned the waterfront. Am I wrong.