Overview of Key Project Ideas

We have gathered our information about the elements of the Flushing West rezoning and how the community will be affected by it. On Monday, we decided that we cannot thoroughly cover all the effects of the rezoning, so we decided to narrow it down to gentrification. The biggest fear of the Flushing West residents in that the neighborhood will be gentrified, and that it will lead to them being displaced.

Update on Current Progress

During this week, there were not any town hall meetings, and MinKwon did not have any updates concerning the rezoning. Since there was a lack of events, we decided to meet up and work on the project.

On Monday we agreed to concentrate our project on gentrification that can be caused by the current proposal for the rezoning. Gentrification is the main source of all the complaints that we heard from the community since we started working on this project. The recent history of Flushing also shows that the property values have increased from $359,900 in 2010 to $431,800 in 2014, while the median household income has gone down from $50,231 to $37,083. (American Community Survey 2010-2014).

There has also been an increase in commercial building, and this rezoning wants to add even more to what already exists in the Flushing area. The people however, want the planners to improve the Flushing infrastructure so that it can accommodate the already massive amount of commerce that it has. Adding high-end housing and commercial buildings will add more strain to the overcrowded 7 train, a train line that is one of the few forms of public transportation to and from Flushing.

SkyView is an example of the gentrification that the residents want to prevent. SkyView Parc added housing for the rich when affordable housing was needed. With the addition of luxury housing to a mall, SkyView Center and the streets around it are very overcrowded. There is not enough public transportation for all the people, and for those that own cars, there is no parking. Parking at SkyView used to be free for anyone, but after it people started living there, they started charging for the parking, giving everyone else less space to park. The current plan for rezoning may not give space for another development like SkyView, but it is a waterfront area that investors will be attracted to, and what they want will clash with the needs of the residents.

So, now we have an example of a previous waterfront development by looking at the Greenpoint/Williamsburg plan, and we also have an example of development that caused gentrification in Flushing by looking at SkyView center. Social Explorer was also a tremendous help in visualizing the changes in Flushing  over the last couple of years.

Interesting Findings

There is a type of urban planning under the 197-a law in the City Charter that allows the communities themselves to decide on the urban development based on the input from the residents that live there. It is the type of plan that was used in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg waterfront rezoning in 2003. The community there made their own plan to revitalize the area. This plan included parks, open space, and affordable housing, the last one being what the residents of Flushing West need the most.

Challenges encountered

One of the biggest challenges we faced this week is that we made our project too broad. When we went to the public meeting two weeks ago, we saw many issues that the people of Flushing West had with the rezoning proposal. We were being overly ambitious in trying to tackle all the problems that they had. During class on Monday we decided that gentrification was the biggest complaint and it needed to be attended to the most.

Another challenge that we face is finding an effective public education product. The 3D map of Flushing West might not be what we need to accommodate our new goal. We can either find a way to make it work, or use a different form of delivery. We really do not want to do a flyer or another paper product. There were many other flyers given out during the public meeting, and we do not want our product to be lost among the papers they hand out.

Tasks Remaining

We still have to look deeper into SkyView Center’s development. In addition to our quantitative data, we should acquire some data about people’s thoughts on the development. Interviews of people that lived in the area would help to see the community’s reaction to the development, and to see how those sentiments affect their view on the current Flushing West rezoning. We also want to see if those feelings are supported by our quantitative data, so we can have a valid stance against the current rezoning proposal.

When we learned about the 197-a plan, we also read that it has only been implemented in 13 different occasions since its addition to the City Charter in 1989. I plan on finding out why this plan is not used very often, and also why it was not used for the rezoning of Flushing West. We also plan on finding other waterfront developments, in addition to the Greenpoint/Williamsburg development, to use as examples of what to do, and what not to do, with the current proposal. We now have a clearer motive for our white paper, and now we need to get more useful data to support the claim that the plan for rezoning Flushing West will cause gentrification to an area that cannot handle it.

Group Dynamic

We have already met twice since our class meeting on Monday, and we all have decided on tasks that we will do for this project. Brian will find another waterfront development that we can use to support our case. Christine, Claudia and Erica will now look at the aftermath of the development of SkyView, and they will get some input from residents in the area. Erica will also continue engaging with the MinKwon center in order to get more information, and to see if there are any announcements about the rezoning. I will continue looking into the 197-a planning and, along with the rest of the group, find connections between our research and what is being proposed in the Flushing West rezoning.