Jarrett Murphy’s article regarding New York City’s rezoning and future plans under Bloomberg’s administration is lacking in various areas. Government regulation on land use changed since 2002 with the 9,400 rezoned block in New York City. This large amount of change during Bloomberg’s administration makes me wonder why it was all even necessary. Under Koch, the maximum amount of rezoned blocks was five, and this was even into the 90s, which was not too long ago. Although the claim that rezoning was done to pursue “transit-oriented development” it does not appear to be the case. About more than half of the rezoned areas downsized actually had good proximity to transit. Thus, it seems that City Planning is working against its supposed goal and is just reshaping New York City as it pleases.

As the first city to apply zoning on a citywide basis, we had started off other cities rezoning such as Chicago and Miami. Although a different tactic was taken, the plans of these two cities were successful. Efforts to succeed in our rezoning plans in 1939, 1950, and 1969 all failed. According to Tom Angotti, if comprehensive plans were made and succeeded, New York would be different than what it is today. This would not be too much of a big deal in my opinion, if the article had not mentioned that City Planning is not working on long comprehensive planning and is instead narrowing down their focus to individual proposals and neighborhoods. From my perspective, why do areas have to be rezoned anyway? Either way all the different areas make up New York and the districts are fine the way they are. Even if they are rezoned, people in the area most likely will not know that they have been rezoned. I know I would not.

With the name PlaNYC, one would think it is a plan to help New York City’s future. However, according to Murphy’s article that is not the case. Apparently, “PlaNYC was never intended to be what its name implies,” instead it is supposed to be an “agenda.” This is the simplest, yet biggest mistake that could be made. The name of something should tell the audience or give the audience an idea of what it is, yet this name was chosen because it was “cute.” Even when planners had told them that the name gave off the wrong meaning, it was still decided that the agenda would be called PlaNYC. From this, I think that this group needs to rethink their name or fulfill the meaning of PlaNYC with real plans instead of agendas. To get things done, the city needs plans more than agendas.

The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure creates a difficult path for plans. The developer must first gather paperwork to be reviewed by City Planning, mainly a complete environmental impact statement. The EIS is not only costly for the developer, it is also risky as the market involved in the proposed plan fluctuates as the plan is being reviewed. As time is of essence, approval of the EIS in a timely fashion is crucial, but even for a short project it takes three to six months to review. Besides time being a problem, some developers “downplay obvious concerns.” I think this is a bigger problem than time, since not going into depth of problems in the environment can lead to future harm and damage. If a developer does this, I do not think their proposal should be considered, because this small action can lead to bigger more harmful actions.

Although New York City is always growing and changing, a long comprehensive plan to ensure its future is possible. Without a plan, how will New York solve the present and past problems that will affect its future? People cannot just rush ahead without a plan, so neither should the city, and officials should understand that and start working on a plan.

Jarrett Murphy raises legitimate concerns about the focus of rezoning under the recent administration and the lack of city planning as a whole. Murphy believes that developers have become supremely influential in dictating current regulations. Furthermore, the disunity among constituencies has made it difficult to create a comprehensive city plan to appease the major people groups in NYC.

It is difficult to imagine that under the Bloomberg administration, the City has revised zoning equivalent to the size of Boston or San Francisco. This excessive rezoning will undoubtedly dictate the way land will be used. The city has consistently upzoned transit oriented sites in hopes of further development. However, reports have also shown that the city has downzoned some areas, like Staten Island, where the population was whiter and wealthier. Such selective zoning raises concerns that city’s goals are driven more by developers than its own residents. In fact, due to inclusionary zoning, developers now have the right to build larger structures if they create affordable housing or other residual benefits to the neighborhood. Development projects such as the Atlantic Yards have already made Community Benefit Agreements to appease the local residents. Unfortunately, these agreements are very difficult to enforce because community boards neither have the resources to initiate or guarantee successful litigation. Essentially, the new zoning regulations opens the door for megaprojects to become a reality throughout the city, regardless of opposition from residents.

With this in mind, the task creating a master plan for the City is becoming a key question. Should NYC have a comprehensive plan for the future? In retrospect, the city would probably be better off (in terms of density and overall infrastructure) if planning had been pursued earlier. Although PlaNYC sets goals for a sustainable future, it is more of an agenda than a constructive plan. Hence, there is a call for government officials to devise concrete steps to implement the ideas expressed in PlaNYC. However, New York City is very different from the likes of Chicago, or Miami, where comprehensive city planning have been implemented without stark opposition. The political atmosphere of our state suggests that no plan will be “good enough” to appease all constituencies. Furthermore, the power of the land lies in separate hands such as the MTA, DOT, and others, making it difficult to obtain unified support. As a result, there is a constant struggle that renders the idea of comprehensive city planning useless in a city like New York.

Altogether, the general trend of zoning regulations points to the influence of real estate developers. As the city continues to progress, there will be more leeway given to large-scale development projects than individual residents. Hence, in planning for the city, there needs to be concrete steps for initiating a sustainable future while respecting the rights of each community.

In “Five Boroughs. One City. No Plan.” Jarrett Murphy talks about the vast increase in zoning that has taken place during the Bloomberg administration. Zoning designates the permitted uses of the lands, such as for residential, commercial, manufacturing, the style and size of buildings, and the size of yards, amongst other things. During nine years of Bloomberg’s administration, there were 108 rezonings, and since 2002, 9,400 blocks in New York City have been rezoned. This is especially astonishing when compared to the 1980s and 90s when it took five years to rezone five blocks, and it seems like it doesn’t take much work or effort or thought to rezone during the Bloomberg administration.

Amanda Burden, head of the Department of City Planning, said that the rezonings “are setting the conditions for sustainable, transit-oriented growth” and are “designed to accommodate a population of 9 million New Yorkers projected by 2030.” This sounds nice in theory, but I wonder what happens if the developments and projects don’t work out. Maybe a certain type of zoning won’t work in an area. If the neighborhoods and areas do not develop like expected or people don’t live or go there, what happens? It would be a waste and it could leave neighborhoods empty and ruined.

Something interested mentioned in the article that we have also discussed in class was giving developers the right to build large structures if they also build affordable housing, protect cultural institutions, encourage bike racks, and other things that are supposed to help the people of the city and make it better. This sounds like a good way to make sure that there is benefit to everyone, not just the developers and a certain part of the population, but it would only work if done correctly. One thing to look at would be how having affordable housing mixed in regular market housing would affect who lives there. The article also says there would be bonuses for builders who protect neighborhood grocery stores, but I wonder how this would be done since by developing the area, rent would probably go up thereby kicking people out since they could no longer afford it. There is also the question of whether or not developers do what they are actually supposed to.

In the article, Pratt Center’s Eve Baron writes that planning is not just about the physical, but also about having day care, schools and other services. That along with transportation, parks, and health care is part of a comprehensive plan, but New York has never really taken a comprehensive approach to planning.  This sounds good, but I think it’s difficult to do when an area is already developed. If you have a very little developed area, then it much easier to put things where you want, but if it’s a developed city with a lot of people and businesses you would have to see where an upcoming neighborhood is before deciding to add more transportation or school or something. There is not point in planning and building something if you aren’t sure that people will go there.  Just because you build it, it doesn’t mean people will go.

Right now, the plan or agenda in place for the city is PlaNYC. It isn’t a really plan, but I don’t believe that a complete developed plan is really needed for it to succeed. It’s more of a vision of what the City should be like in the future, and perhaps there is not really a concrete strategy to everything outlined in PaNYC, but having it is a start and it could be decided on later on. What might work in area might not in another, like with parks and open spaces, so catering the plan to each area would be best.

In the article, “Five Boroughs. One City. No Plan.” Jarrett Murphy discusses the recent spree of rezonings under the Bloomberg administration and the fact that New York has no “comprehensive plan” as to its future and the direction that the city is heading. According to the article, since 2002, New York City has rezoned 9,400 blocks and over 18 percent of the city. Zoning laws are crucial to the development and growth of all major areas. They regulate how the land may be used, what developers can build on the land, and dictate the specifications that must be included  when building in a certain area. According to Murphy, if the city wants to continue to thrive and focus on its future, it must develop a plan regarding the foundation for its growth.

As Murphy argues, I believe that it is extremely important to develop the areas surrounding public transportation. One key factor that attracts residents to particular neighborhoods is its access to transportation. Why would they want to settle in an area that is inaccessible. They want to know that it will be easy for them to get to and from their destinations. Therefore, the city should pursue, as the article states, “transit oriented development,” which is encouraging growth near subway stations and bus stops. However, according to the Furman Center report, 1/4 of the areas where City Planning has allowed growth are not near transit lines. Murphy argues that instead of encouraging growth in areas that can be easily accessed by public transportation, the Bloomberg administration has been focused on retaining talent by providing them with housing along the waterfront.

I found it very interesting how certain areas, such as Staten Island, are preserved, while others including Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Jamaica are targeted for increased density. The Furman Center found that areas that were preserved happened to be whiter and wealthier than areas that were upzoned. This stat really made me wonder if wealth and money control whether or not your area is rezoned to encourage investment. It seems to me that in the case of rezoning wealth plays a major factor when considering whether or not an area will be preserved or targeted for development and increased density. It really goes to show you that instead of focusing on transit oriented areas that are suitable for development the City Planning Commission looks towards low-income, minority-dominated neighborhoods.

After talking about New York’s lack of a comprehensive plan, Murphy continues to discuss PlaNYC, and how it can not be considered as a plan. For starters, I believe that PlaNYC is a vision instead of a plan. It states certain objectives, such as a city where everyone has access to a park, however, it does not mention how it plans to accomplish that goal. And as Murphy states, “it doesn’t tell you, this area needs growth, this area doesn’t need growth.” It lists an agenda or what they hope to accomplish, but doesn’t lists the steps to guide us towards accomplishing those objectives. Although I agree that it has led to many achievements and will provide benefits to the residents of New York, it does not address some of the major issues concerning the future growth of the city and the development that will take place in order to accommodate the growing population of New York.

I believe that it is imperative that the City Planning Commission creates a “comprehensive plan” that will help satisfy the needs of the increased future population of New York. They must focus their attention on their residents instead of the visions of developers. Furthermore, they must choose neighborhoods surrounded by public transportation and that is easily accessible. They must have a clear cut plan on what must be done to accommodate for the future growth of the city and must take this plan into action in order to quickly and efficiently meet the needs of its residents.

According to the article Five Boroughs. One City. No Plan written by Jarrett Murphy, New York City has gone through 9,400 blocks of rezoning process. Amanda Burden, who is the head of the Department of City Planning, believes that rezoning “are setting the conditions for sustainable, transit-oriented growth and are signed to accommodate a population of 9 million New Yorkers projected by 2030.” Some parts of the city were heavily occupied, for example downtown and midtown Manhattan, while other parts of city were quiet vacant, lack of livable conditions.

I do agree that there should be different policies for different neighborhood. However, as this article pointed out that sometimes these policies raised public questions. Areas that were supposed to get downzoned were instead becoming denser. As Jarrett Murphy pointed out in this article, there seem to have certain pattern in which the area that got downzoned were mostly white and wealthy neighborhood. I think that the process of zoning may not necessarily good for the neighborhood, but sometimes benefits developers.

Since 1916, there were regulations on what can be built in the city.  For example, the old “wedding cake” rule, which states that “builders had to set back the upper floors, so that building looked like cake layers stacked one atop another,” I think this is definitely a great way to construct skyscrapers because it allows more sunlight passing through the city. However as time progressed, the desire of building modern style of skyscraper may not fit into this “wedding cake” rule. It’s not surprising to me that the zoning resolution has been constantly changing.

My favorite part of this article is when Eve Baron was describing what planning is all about; he says “Planning is about more than the physical.” Neighborhoods that are livable should include schools, day care center, medical centers and other public facilities that make up basic elements of a community. The whole process of zoning started with government regulating what can and can’t be built. It was the private market that decides what gets built, but the problem is that these private real estate market only focuses on constructing apartment buildings and can’t satisfy what a neighborhood’s actual needs.

In order to build a neighborhood with all those transportation infrastructure, parks and health center, there should be a comprehensive plan. However, “New York has never taken a comprehensive approach to planning.” It seems like the whole project was only focused on real estate development without actually thinking about what really makes a good neighborhood to live in. This is why the process of rezoning in New York City usually takes a long time because there is no cohesive plan for building the city.