Scoping testimony

Friends,
If you care about living here
If you care about this place
If you care about history
If you care about the future
If you care about community
If you care about overdevelopment
If you care about the eviction of tenants
If you care about the warehousing of apartments
If you care about giant hotels and mega-dormitories
If you care about life in the Lower East Side & East Village

then tell the Department of City Planning Monday.

The DCP's Scoping Session is the moment for you to express what the community wants for the future of the LES and East Village. If you care about preserving this neighborhood from increasing development and gentrification, come forward and tell DCP that

you do not want construction on your rooftop,
you do not want demolitions and redevelopment,
you do not want to lose our broad, bright avenues,
you do not want upzoning,

that you want this neighborhood to survive as it is and has been for over a hundred years. A community. The downest, homiest, funkyest, realest, mixedest, anarchistest, leftest, best community in the world.

I will ask that the three following alternatives be included in the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement:
1. include the Bowery in the C4-4A zone,
2. do not increase the current 3.44 FAR on the avenues,
3. do not upzone Houston, Delancey, Chrystie or D.

1. Inclusion of the Bowery: the impact of this zoning on the Bowery could be devastating. Unable to build their hotels south of Houston, developers will look to the Bowery where hotels can still be built. The EIS must include a study of the Bowery. LESRRD asks that DCP extend the C4-4A zoning to the Bowery. Most Bowery buildings are four stories or lower. Nearly all the rest are only five stories tall. It is home to some of the oldest, most historic structures in New York (e.g. 185 & 357).

2. Keep the current 3.44 FAR for the avenues: virtually all of 1st Avenue and most of 2nd, A, B and C are lined with buildings 5-stories or lower , FAR 3.44 or less. Raising the FAR to 4 will mean rooftop additions all across the avenues. Landlords use the construction of extensions as a means of turning residences into construction sites to harass tenants out of their homes. Four-story buildings will be warehoused in preparation for demolition and redevelopment. The low-rise, broad, open Civil War context of the East Village avenues will be darkened beyond recognition and solely for money, no other reason.

3. No upzoning on Houston, Delancey, Chrystie or D: Inclusionary up-Zoning on Houston has already brought us the Avalon Building and Whole Foods. The character of the neighborhood cannot survive more 80% market-rate glass&steel intrusions. Added development causes secondary displacement of residents and mom-and-pop businesses. Let's keep developers away, let's not invite them in. A reasonable zoning for these streets: R7B (FAR 3, height cap 75 ft) perhaps with an inclusionary housing bonus to 4. That will ensure that no one currently living in affordable housing will be displaced for the sake of promises of affordable housing.

A general alternative proposal for the entire district including the Bowery:

* maintain the current 3.44 FAR,
* remove the community facility bonus,
* cap heights at 70 feet (3.44 FAR = an average 5 story tenement, so the added height won't threaten existing tenements.)


The closest existing contextual zonings would be R6A and R7B and for south of Houston, C4-3A. Zoning designations like these but with 3.44 FAR would fit the neighborhood like a glove.

Don't forget to sign the petition to include the Bowery:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/BAN62007/petition.html

Scoping Meeting for the Environmental Impact Statement on the EV/LES Rezoning:
Department of City Planning,
Spector Hall,
22 Reade Street
June 25, 2-5pm, 6-8:45pm

The Scoping Meeting explained

1. What is a Scoping Meeting and why is it so important?

Ordinary residents (!) can get their concerns included in the rezoning.
Zoning=the future: housing & community preservation or development, displacement, eviction.

Before the Department of City Planning (DCP) can rezone a neighborhood, it must study the "environmental impact" of the rezoning -- the impact on population density, on construction and development, on mass transit, on traffic, on local businesses.

The Scoping Meeting is a hearing at which DCP will consider what to include in the scope of this Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). It is the one, big chance for the ordinary citizen to propose additions or revisions -- "alternatives" -- to the rezoning plan.

Since the plan has to go through both the Borough President's Office and the City Council, DCP is under pressure to include well justified, broadly supported alternatives, otherwise their plan loses credibility with the elected officials who must vote on it.

So Scoping is your chance to be heard where it counts.


2. What will happen at this Scoping Meeting?

The Community Board will present its 11 point alternative.
You can present your concerns too. I will ask DCP to
1. include the Bowery in the good preservation zone DCP proposed for the area from Chystie to Essex,
2. not increase the current 3.44 FAR on the avenues so that landlords can't destroy 1st & 2nd Avenues with rooftop additions and harass tenants with their construction
3. not upzone Houston, Delancey, Chrystie or D: to slow the rapid change here, we need to keep developers out, not invite them in.

Please join me. The more support for preservation, the more likely the neighborhood will be preserved.
Community pressure helped bring about the 11 point alternative. There's more to ask for. Let's ask.

And don't forget to sign the petition to include the Bowery:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/BAN62007/petition.html

Scoping Testimony

The Scoping Meeting on June 25 is the most important opportunity for community input into the impending rezoning of the East Village and Lower East Side. If enough of us testify, we can make a difference.

I will ask that the three following alternatives be included in the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement. This is just a sketch. I'll provide more detail soon for anyone who wants to join me:

1. Inclusion of the Bowery: the impact of this zoning on the Bowery could be devastating. Unable to build their hotels south of Houston, developers will look to the Bowery where hotels can still be built. The EIS must include a study of the Bowery.

2. Keep the current 3.44 FAR for the avenues: virtually all of 1st Avenue and most of 2nd, A, B and C are lined with buildings 5-stories or less , FAR 3.44 or less. Raising the FAR to 4 will mean rooftop additions all across the avenues. Landlords use the construction of extensions as a means of turning residences into construction sites to harass tenants out of their homes. Four-story buildings will be warehoused in preparation for demolition and redevelopment. The low-rise, broad, open Civil War context of the East Village avenues will be darkened beyond recognition and solely for money, no other reason.

3. No upzoning on Houston, Delancey, Chrystie or D: Inclusionary up-Zoning on Houston has already brought us the Avalon Building and Whole Foods. The character of the neighborhood cannot survive more 80% market-rate glass&steel intrusions. Added development causes secondary displacement of residents and mom-and-pop businesses. Let's keep developers away, let's not invite them in. A reasonable zoning for these streets: R7B (FAR 3, height cap 75 ft) perhaps with an inclusionary housing bonus to 4. That will ensure that no one currently living in affordable housing will be displaced for the sake of promises of affordable housing.

A general alternative proposal for the entire district including the Bowery: maintain the current 3.44 FAR, remove the community facility bonus, cap heights at 70 feet (3.44 FAR = an average 5 story tenement, so the added height won't threaten existing tenements.) The closest existing contextual zonings would be R6A and R7B and for south of Houston, C4-3A. Zoning designations like these but with 3.44 FAR would fit the neighborhood like a glove.

Scoping Meeting for the Environmental Impact Statement on the EV/LES Rezoning:
Department of City Planning,
Spector Hall,
22 Reade Street
June 25, 2-5pm, 6-8:45pm

Scope it out

On June 25, the Department of City Planning will hold the public "scoping meeting" for the proposed EV/LES Rezoning. This is the critical moment for community input into the rezoning plan. You may address the agency for 3 minutes and submit your comments in writing as well. Soon I will post the comments I plan to submit myself.

Department of City Planning,
Spector Hall,
22 Reade Street
June 25, 2-5pm, 6-8:45pm

The DCP website has all the documents relevant to the scoping and the hearing:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/env_review/scope.shtml#evles

No answer yet

I seem to have hit a nerve with my explanation for why the 3rd and 4th Avenue study was completed before the Bowery study has even begun. No one has yet offered a better explanation or any explanation. I'd like to understand why the Bowery was not prioritized. I invite the explanation for all to read here.

Rezoning the Bowery

The Community Board Zoning Task Force Subcommittee will meet Monday, June 11, 6:30pm at 113 Second Avenue (between 6th & 7th Streets), in the NYU "Black Room." Rezoning the Bowery will be on the agenda.

The rezoning study for the triangle between 3rd & 4th Avenues has been completed and the CB is about to move forward on a rezoning plan. Meanwhile, the CB has only just begun to discuss raising the money for a study of the east side of the Bowery down to Canal.

Community groups have already studied the area for height and density. I'd like to see the CB accept these studies and move forward with a rezoning for the Bowery without delay. If the CB were to ask DCP for a 197-c plan as it did for the EV/LES rezoning, it would save a lot of time and make up for some of the time lost already.