After doing case-studies on neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, one can’t help but wonder what it takes for a plan to succeed. Or at the very least, why it’s so difficult for a plan to succeed. Like, why is it that even when the community board has a reasonable plan, like it did in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the plan still ends up being rejected. The golden examples of the Cooper Square plan and the Melrose Commons plans in Queens can lend us some insight.
If we focus on The Cooper Square committee, we can see that it created an alternative plan and presented it–and went even further. The committee worked alongside developers and companies for years, adapting to the times. During the fiscal crisis, the Committee almost succeeded to secure funds from the state Urban Development Corporation. However, given the near bankruptcy of the city, the plan didn’t come into fruition. So clearly, having a plan that makes the old one seem obsolete is not enough in and of itself. Among the organizations the Cooper Square Committee reached out to was the Jewish Association of Services for the Aged (JASA). In doing so, the committee helped ensure that project interests would cater to local residents, who were more ethnically diverse than the white population it previously targeted. The committee advocated for the protection of the homeless and one room houses, conducting a study to strengthen their case. The committee reached out to community organizers and made themselves more official.
The community’s political history and social base were assets that only strengthened the committee’s determination to have affordable housing and community participation. The background of the community and the seemingly perpetual tenacity of the committee guided it through difficult times but with promising results. The Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association (MHA) was basically a nonprofit type of ownership with tenant control. Unlike a business improvement district, MHA tenants do not own shares, but they collectively make decisions about the housing. So far, so good. The committee couldn’t have its way without making concessions and compromises, however. One of the areas, Avalon Chrystie Place, had a sponsor that was a real estate investment trust (REIT), This of course could mean that public interest may not be prioritized. It was a gamble, so to speak.
Why was it that even after community boards could submit plans to the City Planning Commission and the City Council, many other plans failed? Why was it that 17 years after the charter that enabled this process (197a), of the over 100 plans submitted, only about ten were adopted? Some of the reasons are that the community boards lacked power (they were only making suggestions that could easily be rejected) and the the City focused its power on zoning (which allowed it to find loopholes to avoid the community board’s plans). The city’s willful neglect of the policies in certain community board plans established a pattern: community board plans were
approved and quickly ignored, and the city took no responsibility for implementing them. Then comes the zoning scheme: the focus of the city was to retain maximum flexibility to change zoning rules so that there is maximum flexibility for real estate industry. That real estate industry flexibility will use its influence at City Hall to get zoning changes when and where they need them. Organizations like the DCP used zoning to free itself of responsibility for everything else going on in the city. For example, when it comes to building or preserving affordable housing, DCP defers to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), an institution concerned with housing production. What ends up happening is that no city agency is responsible for questions of community services, displacement, and gentrification that may be involved in HPD projects.
Overall, the process of accepting a plan can be lengthy and community board plans can be neglected, but we should try to refer to the Cooper Square plan to see what worked: the inclusion of development alternatives that were more accessible to people who lived in the neighborhoods and the involvement of community organizers who helped implement the plans (not to mention the political unity in the diverse community).
On a lighter note, A new live action film was planned for Sonic the Hedgehog and fans were outraged. The official trailer has 320k “likes” on youtube while having 559k “dislikes.” Clearly, there is disparity between the number of people who enjoyed the trailer and those who didn’t. Many were displeased with the character design, arguing that the Sonic in the film had too many humanoid features and didn’t stay true to the classic animated character. Youtubers and online figures created alternatives to the one in Paramount pictures’ trailer, “fixing” Sonic (see the image below). They provided an alternative, showing the company what they really wanted to see. With the help of photoshop and the youtube community, many parodies of the trailer were created, many youtube personalities criticized the trailer and accumulated millions of views. Why do I mention this? The director of the movie officially tweeted that he understood the backlash and the criticism and that the company was going to work to implement the changes the fans wanted–he said he would fix the company’s Sonic, only months before the release date. It’s extraordinary that backlash and criticism with overwhelming support was able to reach recognition at the director level, this is almost unprecedented. However, the director didn’t mention what specifically the team intends to do. This leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Will the developer stay true to the fans? Or will we see another episode of the city observing a community board plan and approving the plan, only to completely neglect it? Only time will tell
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Questions to consider:
- Should the city take a more hands-on approach to implementing community plans? For example, should programs such as the Inclusionary Housing Program and the 420a program have mandatory twenty percent affordable housing?
- What role does real estate play in zoning and in the creation (or lack thereof) of affordable housing?
- Would Jane Jacobs agree with Angotti about the qualities the Cooper Square Committee possessed that enabled it to succeed? Why or why not?
- Is the Sonic community’s surprise at the director’s response to their criticism a reflection of the hierarchy of power? What are the similarities and differences between the community board process and the process used to change Sonic?
