The Department of City Planning (DCP) wants to hear your ideas regarding what you think is important in the landscape of our community. It is coming at a good time for us. We are fighting a huge, out of scale development on Bruckner Boulevard and unless we fight this with all the ammunition we have, we will see our one- and two-family homes disappear in favor of towering monstrosities.
We are asking every member of our community to go to goodurbandesign.nyc and complete the survey. It is crucial that you tell them that we must preserve our low-density zoning. Our community cannot support upzoning because it will decimate our already overtaxed services like police, fire, sanitation, hospitals, schools, etc. Our infrastructure cannot support more huge buildings either.
We also need to let them know that we fought very hard, for many years, to get our downzoning. We received the downzoning because the community board, DCP, the City Council, the borough president and the mayor all agreed that it was needed. Being that our community has become even more overcrowded, it makes sense that no upzoning should be approved0..
We are finally being asked for our opinion. Please take advantage of this opportunity and pass this information along to your friends and family. Let your voices be heard.
As you might have heard, the Buckner upzoning is up for certification sometime after March 14. This means that the public review process will begin after that date. This is winnable if we stay focused, united and involved.
Right now, you can reach out to our Councilmember Marjorie Velázquez, as she has critical voting power that can support our cause. Velázquez has confirmed her support of the community on this issue many times and I do believe that we can count on her continued support. Her job now will be to educate her colleagues at the City Council as to why this project will be detrimental to our community and why they should join her in voting it down. You can reach her office at (718) 931-1721 or District13@nyc.council.gov.
For those that are not familiar with the Bruckner upzoning, Throggs Neck Associates LLC has proposed to upzone the area from Crosby Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard, all the way down to Gifford Avenue and into Tremont Avenue. They want to change our current R4A low-density zoning so that they may build four mixed-use buildings ranging from 3-8 stories. They are proposing to offer 384 residential apartments which would inject more than 1,100 new residents into our already overcrowded community. The proposal will upzone 35 parcels and that opens the door to more towering buildings, more people and more problems.
