8 JULY 19, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Lawmakers condemn ‘destruction’ of Ridgewood in letter to the mayor
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
Two elected offi cials representing
Queens have joined Community
Board 5 and concerned local
residents in the fi ght against a controversial
new housing development in
Ridgewood.
Assembly Members Catherine Nolan
and Mike Miller took their complaints
straight to the top on July 13 when they
sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio to
draw his attention to 1664 Woodbine
St., where construction is about to
begin. Listed among the nearly 3,000
Ridgewood structures on the National
and State Registers of Historic Places,
the building is set for a vertical expansion
that could “speed up the potential
for additional high-rise developments”
in the neighborhood, the letter stated.
More importantly to the lawmakers’
constituents, however, is the feeling
that such developments are “destroying
the integrity and character of the
block,” according to the letter.
“This would forever alter the
neighborhood’s identity and negatively
aff ect the quality of life for all
of Ridgewood and Western Queens
residents,” Nolan and Miller wrote.
“Ridgewood is made up of medium to
low-rise buildings and should not be
transformed into a dense, high-rise
community.”
The letter cites the eff orts of Myrtle
Avenue Business Improvement
District Executive Director Ted Renz
and Ridgewood Property Owners and
Civic Association President Paul Kerzner,
who are also members of Board
5 who have led the charge against the
building.
On July 9, the two sent a letter of
their own to the Department of City
Planning requesting a moratorium be
placed on the property and any others
where Department of Buildings (DOB)
approval is required or there is intent
to add height and additional apartments
to existing buildings until talks
about zoning changes have fi nished.
Two days later, Board 5 would pass a
resolution at its July 11 meeting calling
for such a moratorium as well.
Renz, Kerzner and the community
board are seeking a rezoning in the
area that would make the maximum
building height 40 feet, which is the approximate
height of the attached brick
homes on the block. On top of that,
Renz told the Ridgewood Times that if
the city had acted on his requests over
the past decade to make all of Ridgewood’s
historic districts offi cial New
York City Landmarks, things would be
much diff erent today.
“Had that been in place, this could
not have been done,” Renz said. “They
could not have touched the buildings,
period.”
Nolan and Miller expressed their
full support for the moratorium in
their letter to the mayor, and they
called upon his offi ce to take action in
supporting the community.
“Any approval of this unsafe,
out-of-context destruction of our
community would be wrong and we
would urge your agency to assist us
in stopping this destruction,” the
letter states.
Also off ering his support to the community
board’s eff orts is Councilman
Robert Holden, even though the property
is technically just outside of his
district. Holden has been an advocate
for changing zoning laws to protect
one-family row houses in nearby Middle
Village, and he told the Ridgewood
Times that excess development in the
area goes even farther than altering
the community’s character.
“As we get more and more up-zoning
and people taking existing housing
stock and building larger structures,
that’s putting a strain on the local
infrastructure,” Holden said. “Everybody
wants to keep the neighborhood
the way it is, the way it was meant to
be designed.”
Holden said he would also write to
the Department of City Planning in
support of the moratorium.
Read more at QNS.com.
Photo by Dean Moses
A sign outside of 1664 Woddbine St. in Ridgewood shows the impending
project that Community Board 5 is attempting to stop.
Board 5 fi ghts against ‘terrifying’ Ridgewood developments
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
The prospect of gentrifi cation
deepening into Ridgewood is
real, and Community Board 5
is prepared to fi ght back.
At a Board 5 meeting on July 11,
local residents voiced their concerns
about a pair of buildings on Madison
Street and Woodbine Street where
fourth-story additions have been
approved by the Department of
Buildings. While both properties
are included on the National and
State Registers of Historic Places, they
are not protected from development
without City Landmark status, and
the expansions are legal under the
current zoning in the area.
With a resolution brought to the
fl oor by the Zoning and Land Use
Review Committee that passed
unanimously, the board hopes to
“send a message” to the Department
of City Planning and stop similar
developments in the future, said
committee chairman Walter Sanchez.
“There aren’t too many places in the
city that are in play like Ridgewood is
right now, where a developer could
come in and take advantage of the zoning
and really destroy the character of
that particular block,” Sanchez said.
“We’re just afraid, terrifi ed that this is
just going to continue to happen.”
The resolution, written by committee
member Ted Renz, calls for a
moratorium to be placed on any activity
that requires DOB approval and/
or action that involves adding more
stories or height to a building with
the intent of adding more housing
units. The moratorium would also be
retroactive to June 5, which is the date
when Board 5 fi rst met with City Planning
to discuss the issue, Renz said.
The Board’s strategy going forward
is to down-zone the entire block.
As it stands now, the combination of
C4-3A commercial and R6B residential
zoning codes on the block allows
for a maximum height of 54 feet. Renz
said the goal is to limit the maximum
height to 40 feet, which is the approximate
height of the attached brick
homes on the block.
While Sanchez said that the meeting
with City Planning left the impression
that the agency is inclined
to help the community, District
Manager Gary Giordano knows that
it’s going to take a group eff ort from
many local offi ces.
“We are going to need to push them
much harder, with help from our
elected offi cials, to get Ridgewood
rezoned so that this cannot continue,”
Giordano said. “There is a lot of
six-family homes in Ridgewood.”
Renz said that the community is
counting on Council members Robert
Holden and Antonio Reynoso to
come through for them, but the eff ort
has already reached much higher
than that.
Julio Salazar, a representative for
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez,
said at the meeting that their offi ce
is going to call on City Planning to
remain responsive to the needs of
Ridgewood.
“These are historic districts, and we
wanted them to be historic districts
because of the way they look,” Salazar
said. “We want to make sure that they
are preserved, and that these sort of
out-of-character developments don’t
lead to further speculation and set a
precedent across the community.”
While the Woodbine Street building
currently has a green construction
fence around it with a rendering
of the completed project posted outside,
work on the structure has yet to
begin. At the Madison Street property,
however, construction is already
underway with scaff olding scaling
the building and a large dumpster on
the street in front fi lled with debris.
If City Planning accepts the board’s
request for a moratorium until the
down-zoning study is completed, it
is possible that the Woodbine Street
project could be stopped, Renz said.
But the project at Madison Street is
too far along to be stopped.
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