The city’s framework leaves big questions to answer, forces major issues off the table altogether, and triggers legitimate doubts about the unintended consequences of a rezoning. It also could be a genuine attempt to fashion the neighborhood everyone wants.
Some Planning Commission members expressed concerns during their questioning of city officials.
From matters of affordability to school overcrowding, much remains subject to ongoing negotiation between the Council and the administration.
Community Board 4 has in the past expressed support for a rezoning with the right investments, but at a meeting on Monday evening it was clear some members still have reservations.
Local officials and the EDC say the strategy they unveiled this week reflects a healthy amount of community input. But it’s still unclear whether the city’s rezoning pitch will ease or exacerbate some of the community’s deepest concerns.
Local representatives are beginning the long-awaited move to define just what area of lower Manhattan might be covered by a “Chinatown” rezoning that the de Blasio administration has said it will initiate.
In 2004 the island was rezoned to preserve suburban character and restrict population growth. Now islanders have decided they want a thriving downtown as well as quiet streets, so the zoning maps are again open for an edit.
Residents of public housing near the area likely to be rezoned are worried that their community will not benefit from the jobs and housing created by the redevelopment.
Marisa Lago brings to the Planning Commission lessons learned in a three-decade career that has taken her from New York to Boston to Albany to D.C. It includes a five-year stint as chief of compliance at a financial behemoth that played a key role in the financial crisis.
The city’s rezoning plan has critics aplenty–the supporters of a separate ‘neighborhood plan,’ their partners who want to press beyond that plan, and several groups who want to see no rezoning at all.
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