{"id":132771,"date":"2020-12-14T01:33:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-13T22:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/city-councils-rules-for-rezoning-are-an-invitation-to-decay\/"},"modified":"2020-12-14T01:33:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T22:33:10","slug":"city-councils-rules-for-rezoning-are-an-invitation-to-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/city-councils-rules-for-rezoning-are-an-invitation-to-decay\/","title":{"rendered":"#City Council’s rules for rezoning are an invitation to decay"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#City Council’s rules for rezoning are an invitation to decay<\/strong>”
\n<\/p>\n

\n

Two important land-use battles climaxed with opposite outcomes this fall. The City Council app<\/a>roved plans for a Special Flushing Waterfront District in Queens last week, while council opposition to a rezoning of Sunset Park\u2019s Industry City (in Brooklyn) prompted the plan\u2019s sponsors to abandon it.<\/p>\n

Each proposal had ardent proponents and detractors in government and in the private economy. But each outcome was essentially determined by just one member of the 51-person council \u2014 Peter Koo in District 20 in Queens and Carlos Menchaca in District 38 in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t have been that way. Too much was at stake for the whole city for the plans to be green-lighted or killed by a single individual. But the council\u2019s long-standing practice of \u201cmember deference\u201d gives near-total power over land use changes to the member who represents the district in the council.<\/p>\n

The developers who wanted to partially rezone a mostly vacant, 29-acre Flushing Creek site to \u00adallow more new buildings to go up modified and compromised to satisfy Koo. However, Industry City\u2019s owners failed to win Menchaca\u2019s support despite making numerous concessions.<\/p>\n

The Flushing plan will bring business, apartments, a hotel and a landscaped public park to a wasted stretch of near-empty \u00adwaterfront land. The regrettably lost Industry City rezoning would have brought more commerce and jobs to the 35-acre complex and pumped $100 million in annual tax revenue to the Big Apple\u2019s pandemic-starved coffers.<\/p>\n

Beyond either plan\u2019s merits or faults, the disparate outcomes demonstrate that the investment of so much power in a single councilmember needs to go \u2014 especially now, when so many land-use initiatives requiring public \u00adreview remain on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vesting so much authority to one person is an invitation to demagoguery and wheeling-and-dealing, granting outsize influence to a councilmember\u2019s ideological bias \u2014 for example, Menchaca\u2019s obvious, far-left, anti-development agenda (which of course he denies).<\/p>\n

Why shouldn\u2019t the councilmember who represents a district not have the ultimate say? It\u2019s reasonable when entire neighborhoods stand to be permanently altered. Those occur mostly when City Hall, rather than a private real-estate company, sponsors the rezoning proposal.<\/p>\n

Such was the case in the hard-fought struggle to rezone\u00a0Midtown East, an enormous, 80-block transformation to bring a vital chunk of Manhattan into the 21st century. Former Councilman Dan Garodnick worked diligently to improve the original proposal. The result is a template for future development that all parties can be proud of.<\/p>\n

But the Flushing and Sunset Park battles involved no such large-scale impact. They were about discrete parcels of land separate from the neighborhoods\u2019 hearts. Despite howls over \u201cgentrification,\u201d the changes would not extend an inch beyond their own boundaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Flushing land is cut off from Flushing\u2019s residential and commercial centers by a chain-link fence. Industry City is a nearly self-contained complex north and west of the Gowanus Expressway, only a few blocks away yet worlds removed from Sunset Park\u2019s cozy, low-rise apartment buildings, shops and restaurants.<\/p>\n

But \u201cmember deference\u201d allowed Menchaca to say no to Industry City \u2014 and to all the jobs, amenities and tax revenue it would provide \u2014 just because he didn\u2019t like it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Never mind that the plan enjoyed support from the Partnership for New York City, local chambers of commerce, many Sunset Park residents, labor unions and other members.<\/p>\n

Term-limited Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who will leave the job in January 2022, is credited with making the body stronger and more influential. Doing away with member deference where it shouldn\u2019t apply would be a splendid final achievement.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News<\/a> articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#City Council’s rules for rezoning are an invitation to decay” Two important land-use battles climaxed with opposite outcomes this fall. The City Council approved plans for a Special Flushing Waterfront District in Queens last week, while council opposition to a rezoning of Sunset Park\u2019s Industry City (in Brooklyn) prompted the plan\u2019s sponsors to abandon it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/flushing-waterfront-15-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[83622,30242,83684,11247,71561],"class_list":["post-132771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-13-20","tag-city-council","tag-property","tag-queens","tag-rezoning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}