Overview of Key Project Ideas:

We are currently working on the white paper and have equally divided the work. Wilian is in charge of the introduction and research methods. Claudia and I are in charge of organizing the research. Erica is in charge of the political context and Brian is in charge of the policy recommendations and conclusion. For our white paper, we are going to argue in support of rezoning. We are aware that there are many drawbacks of rezoning but as pointed out by the Flushing community members, not rezoning would be more detrimental and would bring about less benefits than if they were not support rezoning.

Updates on Current Progress:

During the research process, we have found that while many are not supportive of rezoning because of the lack of affordable housing units, the danger of displacement and harassment due to a rise in land values, and the lack of community member input, the Flushing community members have come to the consensus that while they are not totally supportive of all aspects of the rezoning, it is better to have rezoning. From the census data collected, we have found that the area median income is around fifty thousand dollars per year. However, the cheapest MIH option is for affordable housing units that cost 40% AMI. This amounts to approximately thirty-one thousand dollars. Even with this option, a portion of Flushing community members will still not be able to afford these residential units because according to the data from 2014, about 47.6% of the households in Flushing have an income less than thirty thousand dollars. From this, one would probably wonder why the residents support rezoning. This may be befuddling but upon further consideration, one will better understand why so many people support the rezoning. If the residents were to vote no on rezoning, there would be no affordable housing units at all. All of the residential units would be sold at market price, which would not benefit the residents in any way. In addition, we are planning to look into the amount of green space in the area as well as the pricing on the housing units in Sky View Mall as a comparison. We are planning to determine how much green space is available to the residents, if possible, because according to some of the residents, there is not enough green space for the people in Flushing. Although there is Flushing Meadows Park, it is rather inaccessible for some people. This was one of the reasons mentioned in support of rezoning at the town hall meeting, as one of the requirements of the rezoning process is the establishment of green space.

We have also found the draft scope, which includes the goals of the rezoning. The draft scope, in addition to containing all of the project goals, delineates some possible effects of rezoning that need to be further assessed. These include business and residential displacement, material hazards, the generation of building shadows, and interference with traffic operation and mobility. In addition to the draft scope, we have found the NYC Department of City Planning website to be extremely helpful as it includes the powerpoint presentations from various meetings and a general overview of the rezoning plan. I found this to be useful in helping me figure out what the rezoning project actually encompasses.

Some of the readings we will possibly incorporate include: “Communities Develop: The Question is, How?” “The Real Estate Capital of the World”, “Planning and the Narrative of Threat”, and “The Armature for Development.” These readings will be important in setting up the background or foundation for our white paper.

Interesting Findings:

According to an article I found online, Jung Rae, one of the members of MinKwon said that Flushing residents earn an average of thirty-nine thousand dollars yearly but based on census data, the median income earned by residents in Flushing is approximately fifty-two thousand dollars per year. Perhaps this discrepancy is due to a difference in the areas, as social explorer does not provide information on solely the area involved in the rezoning project. Rather is provides data on a bigger land area. Using census data from social explorer, I have also found that there has been a general increase in the percentage of households that earn less than thirty thousand dollars per year.

Challenges Encountered:

It was rather difficult to find out more information about Sky View Mall. More importantly, Jung Rae still has not provided a response and thus we do not have access to the surveys he mentioned during the last town hall meeting. This data would have been a valuable addition to our white paper, unfortunately, it seems that we will not be able to draw from the survey data. Erica made several calls to Jung Rae in addition to writing an email but those attempts proved to be fruitless. Another problem is that social explorer does not provide data for the year of 2015 and so that is not included in some of the graphs we generated for our research findings.

Remaining Tasks:

We are currently working on our white paper and we will need to work on our project deliverables. We will continue to reach out to Jung Rae in hopes of obtaining a response so that we may include the information from the surveys they conducted. We have not made much progress on the deliverable yet as we have been preoccupied with the white paper. We are also planning to look at the policy recommendations made by the Bronx Coalition for Community Vision, as Professor Caldwell suggested, in order to draw inspiration for our own policy recommendations. The notes that we took during the town hall meetings will also be incorporated into our white paper.

Group Dynamics:

All of our group members have an assigned task and are working to write the white paper. We are also communicating through use of a group chat to clear up any misconceptions or things that we have difficulty understanding. Through the group chat we also share any sources that we come across that may be useful for other group members.

Dear Future of Flushing Group,

Please review the following sources and take them into account as you work on your white papers!

1. Mironova, O. (2014). The Value of Land: How Community Land Trusts Maintain Housing Affordability. from Urban Omnibus.
2. Making Room for Housing and Jobs: A report by the Pratt Center for Community Development that examines how rezoning industrial areas to provide space for housing may undermine housing affordability if high-wage industrial jobs are replaced with low-wage jobs in retailing and neighborhood services. (May 4, 2015)
3. The Hollowing out of NYC’s Industrial Zones (Feb. 16, 2016)
4. Why DeBlasio’s Housing Plan is Nowhere Near Affordable for Low- and Middle-Wage New Yorkers (Feb. 16, 2016)
5. Protestors denounce de Blasio’s housing plan ahead of vote: “the word affordability has been coopted by the government” (March 22, 2016)
6. Developers are “Very, Very Excited to Pioneer” New Neighborhoods Under de Blasio’s Affordable Housing Plan (March 22, 2016)
7. City Council passes mayor’s citywide rezoning changes (March 22, 2016)
8. Activists vow to fight mayor’s “gentrification plan” in the neighborhoods(March 23, 2016).
9. Residents call for truly affordable housing in ‘Flushing West’ rezoning plan(March 11, 2016)
10. Pols, residents vent Flushing West frustrations (March 17, 2016)
11. Borough Hall Protest decries gentrification (March 30, 2016)
12. Has Developers’ Wish list shaped Queens Rezoning Plan? (April 28, 2016)
13. Flushing’s Affordable Housing at Risk (May 2, 2016)

Overview of Key Project Ideas:

Project has focused a lot since the last update. The deliverable has been changed to be more feasible. We attended the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance town hall meeting and learned a lot from the event organizers. After regrouping and discussing all of the data that we have collected, our focus has shifted slightly and has also gotten a little more specific.

Updates on Current Progress:

One of our key pieces of evidence for the project is using Skyview Mall as a case study for looking at how gentrification and development has affected Flushing. As one of the city’s plans for Flushing is the development of a waterfront promenade in the space across from Skyview Mall is, we are also considering using the waterfront development in Sunset Park to try to extrapolate what we see Flushing growing into. Our goal of raising awareness and educating the community about rezoning has not changed, but it has gotten a little more specific as we want to encourage more democratic participation in the rezoning process.

An update on the project deliverable: my initial plan to develop an interactive 3D environment of the rezoning areas in Flushing ended up being a little impractical. I wanted to build the environment with Unity, which is a game engine that has all the resources I could need for building a 3D environment, however, I have never worked in depth with models and am more experienced in the scripting side. So even though the 3D idea was scrapped, I still wanted to make a deliverable that is interactive and not just a flyer or brochure for someone to stare at. With our goal in mind of educating people, I proposed making a trivia quiz around the current rezoning issues in Flushing. The best way to learn is by making mistakes, and when people are presented with questions that they realize they do not have the answers to, they learn and hopefully get more involved with what is going on in their community. I met with Aaron on Monday to talk about the plans for the deliverable and we decided that the best way for me to go about this trivia quiz would be to make an eportfolio site to host the quiz. It was such a good decision to discuss our options with Aaron as I had totally forgotten about how Macaulay students could create eportfolio sites, I had anticipated and was dreading having to start a website from scratch and deal with a database. Fortunately, the Macaulay has purchased the license for the Gravity Forms plugin which makes the trivia quiz MUCH easier to do. One of the things I would like to do at the end of the trivia quiz is a visualization of the results globally so that a player can see how the rest of the people who took the quiz fared; there is leaderboards functionality in Gravity Forms that looks very promising. Another great thing about setting up an eportfolio site is that we can add additional material to the site and really make the entire thing a strong educational tool for community centers to use.

On April 12, 2016 four members of our group attended the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance town hall meeting. For our group members that had attended the last town hall meeting we were surprised by the significantly lower turnout compared to the last meeting. It turns out that the last meeting had such a large turnout because Peter Koo and a few other important city figures were to be present. As a result, this meeting went a bit differently, starting with announcements and then the meeting broke into three different groups to discuss plans for different aspects of the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance. We went into the rezoning group that was discussing whether rezoning should be passed or not. We met Carol Mcloughlin and Alexandra Rosa who were both very knowledgable about the rezoning and helped to answer some questions about the rezoning in Flushing. A majority of the attendees at the meeting were actually immigrants and needed translators so we decided to just conduct informal interviews with Ms. Mcloughlin and Ms. Rosa. At this point, gentrification of Flushing is unavoidable, Flushing is a hot (moderate by developer standards) area, and as an area gets more popular, things begin to redevelop to increase the economic capability of that area. Currently, because Flushing has already been rezoned once, developers can buy land and develop it right now and not have to include any affordable housing units. In order for the new MIH changes to actually be included, rezoning needs to be passed. The rezoning would also include greenspace requirements, which would improve the environment of Flushing. A senior expressed discontent with the rezoning plans because it would allow for a greater number of units to be built in a lot, a thus cause Flushing to be even more overcrowded. Within the group, when we took a vote, the overall consensus was that the rezoning should be passed otherwise developers could just build and build, the rezoning could help hold back the developers from building thing entirely devoted to profit.

Interesting Findings:

We were actually all misunderstood about whether the rezoning had been passed or not. It turns out that the decision that was made on March 22 by the city council was actually for MIH, adding a more deeply affordable housing option to MIH and that getting the rezoning to be passed is a whole other matter.

Eportfolios and Gravity Forms!

Challenges Encountered:

As we gather more data and attend more Town Hall meetings our focus seems to keep shifting. MinKwon Center does not respond to our emails, we approached Jung Rae who works at MinKwon Center to see if we could get results from a huge survey that MinKwon recently did, hopefully after meeting us in person we will finally hear back from them.

Remaining Tasks:

Attend the press conference that the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance will be holding, presenting different strategies that they would like to see considered in the rezoning of Flushing.

Continue gathering data and refining what exactly we want to argue. Work on white paper.

Group Dynamic:

At this point all off our group members have attended at least one town hall meeting. We have been collecting data and our discussions about what our data means has been very important, as they reflect the process that happens at the town hall. Different views on what is happening allows us refine our argument. Christine will be doing the last project update.

Pictures from the Town Hall meeting

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.

 1. How can you document or better understand the issue? Do you need “hard” numbers (quantitative data) and/or stories of personal experience (qualitative data) or both?

To better understand the issue, aside from attending community events, we would need both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data that we would need to collect include the average income of the people living in Flushing, as a major complaint is how the affordable housing units are in actuality unaffordable for many people, and the cost of living in the area. We can also examine how the development of Skyview Mall has increased the land values in the area or how its establishment has effected change in the area. Using this information, we can then perhaps predict the effect that the rezoning of Flushing West will have on the area. To supplement this data, it would be useful if we could gain a first hand account from people who have been directly affected by the development of Skyview Mall. In addition, so that more voices can be heard, we can perhaps hand out a survey asking what people would like to see from the rezoning project and the stance they have on the issue.

2. How are you going to give legs to your research? What action strategies could you employ to make the research and report as impactful as possible?

Our main priority is to speak for the community members of Flushing West. To do so, we will research the history of Flushing and the issues with other past rezoning projects. Then we will attempt to connect the personal stories of people we interview with the issues seen in the past projects. By doing so, we may be able to convince Councilman Peter Koo to restructure the current proposed plan because he will realize that the past rezoning consequences can very well happen again. In our report, we plan to provide a list of possible outcomes of the Flushing West rezoning. In addition to this, we will provide any possible solutions that we think community members may support. To sum up, we will use the events of the past to show that the current proposed plan must be restructured in order to remain fair to the community members.

3. Who are the stakeholders in the issue? Who has interest? Who is affected?

Local stores that are located within the rezoning area will be affected by this rezoning. However, the residents of Flushing will be mostly affected. The current rezoning will displace the current community members because they will have no way of paying for the eventual increases in rent. Apartment building owners will be heavily interested given the fact that they will be receiving larger sums of money due to increasing rent.

4. Who needs to have their voice be heard?

Our primary objective is to bring attention to what Flushing’s inhabitants have to say. Despite the efforts that Peter Koo has made to relay their concerns, the anticipated changes have not occurred because in reality, their opinions and hopes for the future of Flushing remain ignored. This is unreasonable considering the fact that their lives will be the most greatly impacted by the changes that rezoning will bring. It is imperative that the city take the knowledge of Flushing’s denizens into account and listen to what they have to say so that they may create a Flushing suitable for both the community members and the private developers.

5. Who are you trying to influence? Who has power over the issue?

We are trying to influence the community and elected officials so that they understand the potential issues with the plans to rezone Flushing West. Councilman Peter Koo seemed to think that displacement would not be an issue with the development of the waterfront because no one currently lives there. While the community members present at the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance meeting seemed to be deeply concerned and aware about the effect of the development on affordability of living in Flushing, Peter Koo had to be told how the development would cause gentrification and displacement. We hope to educate people of displacement and gentrification and hopefully increase the number of attendees at these meetings. Councilman Peter Koo has a vote to approve or disapprove the plans to develop Flushing West so he seems to have the most power over preventing displacement and gentrification. However, community members may have just as much power as him if enough show their concern over the issue.

6. Who is your target audience (community members, elected officials, media)?

Our target audience is for community members. If we educate Flushing residents and increase awareness of the potential issues of gentrification and displacement then hopefully there would a greater pressure on elected officials to comply with their demands.

7. Who will collect your data?

Each of us will collect the different types of data that we will need to support our project. Wilian will collect data concerning workforce needs and employment, Brian will collect data concerning affordable housing, and Christine will collect data on the effects of gentrification. We will get quantitative data, and it will cover Flushing and other rezoned areas we consider relevant. Claudia will help us with data from Flushing’s history that she finds. Erica will get qualitative data from community centers that are involved in the Flushing West rezoning.

8. Where can you find the people you need to talk to get your data?

One of our strongest resources has been the MinKwon Center for Center for Community Action. At the recent Town Hall meeting in Flushing, members of the MinKwon center who organized the event had a lot of information readily available and when we approached them for some resources such as their PowerPoint presentation from the meeting, we got a quick response.

9. Where can you find existing information that is relevant to your research?

Some of the most effective information is in statistics. The best place to get this information would be from census/ demographics collections as well as just finding the exact current zoning rules. In most of our sources zoning rules have been generalized and aside from the plan to turn the vacant spaces along the waterfront into residential/retail spaces, it is a little hard to tell what else is exactly changing. Because Flushing is such a specific area in New York, book sources on the History of Flushing will be a little hard to come by, however there are plenty of credible online sources such a Thirteen and the Wall Street Journal that have written on the history and evolution of Flushing.

10. Where can you go for support and assistance (non-profits, universities, government agencies)?

Since the start of this project the MinKwon Center has been a great resource for information on the Flushing West rezoning.  MinKwon is a part of an organization, the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance, which includes six other organizations that want a fair rezoning. These groups can help us understand the position of the Flushing community. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of City Planning can help us understand more about the ULURP process and the step of the process that we are currently in.

11. Based on your answers to the above, which of the following community-engaged” methods are most appropriate for your group’s project?
Tentatively, it seems that Community Mapping/Canvassing will be the most appropriate option for the educational deliverable that I (Claudia am considering). The plans for the project have not been thoroughly worked out as I want to see what information the group gathers and what would be the most effective way of representing it. I would like to take a unique approach with the deliverable, and instead of just giving people numbers on a flyer, I think an interactive approach would be interesting.