Sunset Park Rezone Plans Meet the Community
Last night an overflow crowd attended a Community Board 7 meeting to hear a presentation from the Department of City Planning about its draft proposal for rezoning Sunset Park. The area in question runs from 29th Street to 64th Street and 4th Avenue to the edge of 8th Avenue, and Planning’s draft proposal involves downzoning…
Last night an overflow crowd attended a Community Board 7 meeting to hear a presentation from the Department of City Planning about its draft proposal for rezoning Sunset Park. The area in question runs from 29th Street to 64th Street and 4th Avenue to the edge of 8th Avenue, and Planning’s draft proposal involves downzoning 75 percent of that to preserve the neighborhood’s low-rise character so it’s mostly R6B, which allows a max height of 40 feet or 50 feet after a setback. Some sections of the avenues covered in the draft rezoning plan will be upzoned to allow for areas of between six and eight stories with an inclusionary bonus for the construction of permanent affordable housing. According to Aaron Brashear of the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, the presentation was generally well-received, though not without comment and criticism. Many people still had questions about how the plan would affect the creation/preservation of affordable housing. The next phase of the rezoning will involve generating an Environmental Impact Statement and then starting ULURP, and the actual rezoning may go through by the end of this year.
Sunset Park One Step Closer to Rezoning [Brownstoner]
Nor is Randy Peers, John Burns, Aaron Brashear, Joseph Longobardi, etc. residents of Sunset Park, yet they can and do assume to speak for all of Sunset Park.
At least David Galarza grew up and lived in Sunset Park most of his life — until he was priced out. It’s too bad that the few Latinos or Sunset Park residents that are on Community Baord 7 are either too afraid or too beholden to speak up and out for Sunset Park.
And, in case you didn’t notice, David Galarza wasn’t even mentioned in the letter to DCP. Why not address these remarks to the well respected director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or Rev. Sam Cruz, or Prof. Tarry Hum? Are you saying that these individuals are not qualified to speak on behalf of their communities?
Nor is Galarza a resident of Sunset Park. So why does he speak for all of us?
David Galarza indeed posted the response from the community. But it would be entirely ignorant, racist and utterly arrogant to assume that David Galarza somehow exercises some kind of mind control over those members of the community who signed onto that letter. It’s not surprising however, given the culture of Community Board 7 and those it deems as “leaders” of the community. Including, I suspect, the writer of this post who has at most 2 people in her group.
Get used to it, 80 percent, that’s right 80 PERCENT of the study area is Latino and Asian. The previous poster may be anxious to reverse the white flight of the 70s and 80s, but we ain’t going nowhere and we’re going to be seen, heard and respected.
Call David Galarza what you want, but unlike the previous poster (who had far harsher names for CB 7, Randy Peers, Aaron Brashear, and Councilmember Sara Gonzalez until she herself sold out to Gonzalez and became her lap dog) Galarza is not an old, lame, self-serving sell-out.
This is in response to the letter from the Chinese community re: the rezoning of Sunset Park.
First of all it was posted by “guest” When in fact this same letter was sent to various persons by David Galarza a resident of Windsor Terrace and failed City Council candidate for Sunset Park in 2005 (He came in a distant 3rd in the primary).
To the issues raised:
The DCP does not have the authority to convene CB meetings nor to legislate or regulate for working poor, and cannot cure the ills of communities.
The Chinese community had and still has every opportunity to provide recommendations about what they feel is best for 8th avenue; however, the Sunset Park rezoning only includes have of 8th Avenue; the other half is in CB12. The Chinese community, just as the residents of Sunset Park did last spring, should have collected signatures requesting the CB12 rezone their half of 8th Avenue. The Chinese community chose not to work with CB 12 nor provide any recommendations about the rezoning during the DCP study period and now to say they are being left and the entire rezoning should be throw out is absurd.
Personally, I believe that there is another agenda here that has nothing to do with the rezoning and may have everything to do with someone’s political ambitions.
“Balance” goes both ways. It means you need higher income people in a place too.
The revival, the renovation of old houses and the building of new condos are the best thing that ever happened to Sunset Park or any community. Jobs and revenues won’t come if there isn’t more balance in a neighborhood going from low to middle to high income.
As for panic that NYC is becoming less diverse, are you kidding? You know the entire U.S. is becoming less white not more white, right? Somehow everybody else knows that.
It is just great to see so much dialogue concerning Sunset Park. My only interest in commenting is to dispute the “80 year dump” comment. Sunset is as developed as Bay Ridge except for the Shore Road area – in fact, Bay Ridge is less developed than Sunset. Our waterfront would have been just as developed except that we are “blessed” with naturally deep anchorages unlike the shallow Bay Ridge shores. So we were a working waterfront. Unfortunately, the Longshoreman’s Union was able to flex its muscle and convince the electeds to put the WF on a shelf in storage for the last 50 years (waiting for the return of shipping…lol). And unfortunately, our electeds have allow the worst of uses for our WF – Bay Ridge’s sanitation garage (along with ours), power plants, a prison, auto storage, cement distribution, gravel/stone distribution, and on and on.
Why haven’t I heard the most important arguments? Who is building the elementary schools for the huge body of 6 year olds that we will have in just a couple of years? Who is rebuilding our side street sewer systems to support the trucks, buses and cars that use them daily (the trucks/buses illegally)? Who is rebuilding our electrical distribution grid, to deliver all this “new” electric, to the hundreds, no, thousands of air conditioners in the new buildings? Who is developing traffic management plans to regulate commuter traffic each a.m. & p.m.? Who is giving any attention to the infrastructure that is needed to support merely the housing that has come in the last 5 years, let alone what will come in the future? Oh, I know, our electeds will respond to it when it is a crisis, and only then.
The Community Board room was indeed filled to overflowing last night, but sadly it is the community board 7 of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s & even 90’s that hurt Sunset the most – giving the old court house to the police, not developing the WF back in ’92, hiding the info that the Gowanus was about to be rebuilt, not getting the 197a together until a decade late…and most of all keeping ethnics and civic activists off the board while the remanants of the dead democratic club held on to their little power seats…so freakin’ sad.
Ms. Purnima Kapur
Brooklyn Director
Department of City Planning
Mr. Randolph Peers
Chair
Community Board 7
Ms. Sara Gonzalez
New York City Councilor
District 38
Dear Ms. Kapur, Mr. Peers, and Ms. Gonzalez:
We have many concerns regarding DCP’s proposed rezoning plan for Sunset Park but one issue stands out which merits an immediate response. DCP’s proposed rezoning establishes contextual zoning for all of Sunset Park’s rezoning study area with the notable exception of 8th Avenue. While a proposed C2-4 overlay district would reduce the depth of commercial establishments along the side streets to 100 feet, the zoning remains R6 essentially retaining the status quo due to the lack of height restrictions. Your explanation for deferring the rezoning of 8th Avenue is due to the fact that it serves as a geographic boundary between CB 7 and 12, and as a result, is more complicated. You also stated that DCP will, at some future point, conduct a separate 8th Avenue corridor study with the involvement of CB 7 and 12, however, you did not propose a possible timeframe for this study.
The dilemma of 8th Avenue was pointed out to DCP and CB 7 at the very start of this process so that if the concerns of the Chinese community really mattered, DCP could have convened the community boards to initiate an 8th Avenue corridor study as part of a comprehensive planning and rezoning effort. However, the proposed rezoning does not consider the concerns of the Chinese community nor does it protect small businesses and low-income residents from development and gentrification. In fact, by maintaining the R6 zoning, it essentially directs and concentrates development pressures to 8th Avenue. Our sense is that 8th Avenue has been “conceded†to the developers. Eighth Avenue will not be protected from non-contextual development. Moreover, the rezoning of 4th and 7th Avenues to a R7A with inclusionary zoning will further facilitate condominium development and the gentrification of Sunset Park because it does not reduce the “as of right†FAR and hence, the inclusionary zoning incentive will not result in the production of affordable housing.
The failure of DCP, CB 7, and City Councilor Gonzalez to respond to the concerns of Sunset Park’s working class and working poor communities sets up a potentially divisive process as alluded to in last night’s appeals by several Community Board members not to delay the adoption of the rezoning. Despite shortcomings, they reasoned, unless the rezoning is adopted, the “vultures†will continue to destroy Sunset Park. Our goal is to protect Sunset Park as a multi-ethnic, multi-racial working class community, and we have shared our concerns and rezoning principles with DCP, CB 7, and City Councilor Gonzalez. We are very disappointed the proposed rezoning plan fails to protect all of Sunset Park’s residents. As noted, we have many concerns and will forward a more comprehensive analysis and response to the proposed rezoning plan shortly.
Sincerely,
Margaret Fung, Executive Director, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Johnny Trelles, Sunset Park Alliance of Neighbors
Wing Lam, Executive Director, Chinese Staff and Workers Association
Tarry Hum, PhD, Urban Planner and CUNY faculty
Reverend Samuel Wong, Chinese Promise Baptist Church
Reverend Sam Cruz, Trinity Lutheran Church
The guy who brought up the lack uselessness of the DOB was HOT!
Attention guest @ 1:48:
The guy to the left in the photo at CB7 is American Indian, the next two are Latinos. The two Euros live there too.
Apology accepted.
A photo only tells a little of the truth, only a few degrees of the full picture.
Every seat in the room was occupied and dozens more were in the hallway. There was no doubt in my mind every corner of the community was there. I looked around and I bet a majority of the people there were involved in the petitioning to get the re-zoning started.
BTW, Did you know there are more Asian Non-Hispanics in CB7 than White Non-Hispanics; and, there are almost as many Hispanics as Asian Non-Hispanics AND White Non-Hispanic? Check me out at the US Census.
–Tom Murphy