8 THE QUEENS COURIER • MAY 16, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Queens councilman leads charge to reassess city’s rezoning process
BY MAX PARROTT
mparrott@qns.com
@QNS
When Long Island City was rezoned
in 2001, the city estimated the changes
would create about 300 new residential
units. Since then, 10,000 units have been
created; the city missed the mark by over
3,000 percent.
Th is phenomenon points to fl aws in
the City Environmental Quality Review
(CEQR), the process that the city uses to
predict how rezonings will impact neighborhoods.
Corona City Councilman
Francisco Moya is worried about the
eff ect that these miscalculations will escalate
displacement and school overcrowding.
“It seems to me that right now we’re
treating New Yorkers in primarily low-income
minority communities as guinea
pigs in a badly designed experiment.
We need to compare the results of these
rezonings to our original hypothesis in
the CEQR study and see what we can
glean,” said Moya in a statement.
Th e City Council’s Subcommittee on
Zoning and Franchises, which Moya
chairs, held a hearing on May 7 to assess
whether CEQR procedures useful for
accurately predicting and mitigating the
impacts of City Planning Commission
decisions. As of now, there is no process to
assess the results of CEQR’s analysis aft er
rezonings have come to pass.
Th e councilman recently submitted two
bills that address diff erent facets of the
issue: one aims to measure residential displacement
and the other seeks to measure
school overcrowding in neighborhoods
that have undergone land use change.
Moya told QNS one of his main concerns
is that the CEQR manual does not
take into account rent-regulated apartments.
Without this data, he said, it’s diffi -
cult for rezoning process to bring in housing
stock that supports the people already
living in the community. He thinks this
information is crucial for this city to have
in order to fi ght gentrifi cation.
“It’s important when we are in a time
when there is very limited aff ordable
housing stock in the city of New York,
when we’ve seen the drastic rates of
homelessness, when we’re giving swathes
of city-owned property to developers.
Our community should be the fi rst to
receive the aff ordable housing stock coming
in and that’s not happening,” Moya
said.
Th e displacement bill, Intro.v1487,
would require the city to conduct a study
fi ve-years aft er the rezoning received fi nal
approval by the City Council on all areas
rezoned aft er Jan. 1, 2015. If there’s a shift
in the population of over 5 percent, then
that would be a trigger for the city to
look at what happened and make a recommendation
for amending the CEQR
manual.
Th e other bill, Intro. 1531, would
require the Department of City Planning
to report on the impact on public school
capacity and overcrowding in recently
rezoned neighborhoods four years and 10
years aft er land use change.
As to what the resulting recommendations
might look like, Moya says that’s up
to the Mayor’s Offi ce of Environmental
Coordination that administers the CEQR
manual.
“Th at’s on them to tell us,” he said. “We
want them to do a look back to see what
has been working and what hasn’t.”
File photo
Signal time tweaked at LIC intersection where cyclist was killed
BY MARK HALLUM
mhallum@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Aft er Robert Spencer was killed while
cycling along Borden Avenue in Long
Island City in March, the city Department
of Transportation (DOT) has said that
crews have adjusted the timing of the
light at the intersection where the fatal
crash occurred.
As for the specifi cs of implementing a
protected bike lane, the agency is looking
into their option for improvements.
“DOT reviewed the signal timing at
Borden Avenue and Second Street following
the crash and have adjusted the
cycle from 90 seconds to 60 seconds, and
we are looking into other safety upgrades
along Borden Ave.,” a DOT spokeswoman
said.
Spencer was riding his bike westbound
on the north side of Borden on March 14
when he was struck by 2014 Chevy Cruze
on Second Street. Borden Avenue in the
Hunters Point section of Long Island City
features what is known as a sharrow (a
bike path shared with vehicular traffi c),
while Second Street has a full protected
bike lane.
Michael Vega, Spencer’s brother,
blamed bureaucracy for the incident
claiming that if the city did not wait
for advisory approval from community
boards before implementing traffi c measures,
death and injury could be abated
more effi ciently.
“We do things in this country for the
benefi t of our citizens,” Vega said at the
March 16 vigil. “Th ese politicians, they
answer to us; we don’t answer to them …
I have to live for the rest of my life, my
brothers and sisters have to live for the
rest of their lives, knowing Robert is no
longer with us.”
Nicole Spencer, the victim’s sister, was
dubious of the police report that claimed
her brother had run a red light as Spencer
was an experienced cyclist.
DOT said a variety of improvements
had been made in the area, including
Fift h Street from Borden Avenue to 46th
Avenue, but that they would be exploring
options to avoid further incidents.
City Councilman Francisco Moya
Photo: Google Street View
The intersection of Borden Avenue and 2nd Street in Long Island City
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