Author Archives: Katherine Chiu

Community Board Meeting, Red Hook Group

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At the Community Board 6 (CB6) meeting (for the town of Red Hook, Brooklyn), a main concern that was discussed was the creation of a business improvement district (BID). Josh Thompson (from Hunter), the CB6 planning fellow, lead the discussion regarding the establishment of a BID (which would include a manufacturing district) and maintenance of an industrial business zone.

There was talk about how people feel like Gowanus has no other place for housing and that is why they may have been resistant to rezoning. Rezoning would reduce the space for residential areas and increase the space for BIDs. According to the statistics given at the meeting, however, 86% of the current lots are residential and 77% of those lots are underutilized.

Intense real estate presures from 2004 to 2012 led to increased valuation of properties used for housing as compared to those used for public services. This increased disposition to developing housing would not be as good for economic development as a speculated BID would. A proposed $1.33 of growth was predicted for every $1.00 invested in the BID.

Another issue brought up was that people with more influence on the establishment of the BID were the ones with more money and who were stakeholders on the board. It was only those people who owned property, not those who necessarily owned the businesses or lived there, who would decide on the fate of the BID. The propery owners would be the ones who were ultimately taxed, and the money would go to funding things like Christmas lights, trashcans, and other public functions.

Should the proposal be approved by the city council, risks would have to be assessed. Red Hook is a flood prone area especially, and in light of Sandy, this poses some challenges for manufacturers because expensive equipment can be compromised.

An issue regarding the development of the BID was the rezoning of the area, since businesses were to be located in the industrial business zone (IBZ), not a residential area. Easing speculation would also help usher in more economic development and move away from the focus on housing usage of the current land.

To resolve this issue, the speaker explained that a survey would be issued soon to assess the area. It would be a questionnaire that would help determine how appropriate it would be to establish a BID here. If prospects were good, board members could meet up and vote. Any vote with a majority support for the BID would then allow for BID planning to start.

One topic I wish they discussed more was the issue of disproportionate representation. Those who own the property are not necessarily the ones commuting to work or living there and should people who actually interact with the area become disgruntled, there may be a problem.

Overall, the BID would improve “public right of way” and help promote local businesses. It would also create a stronger social network for manufacturers and give them more leverage to make policies to support the economic future of their town. Joining together would give them the ability to do things like buy materials in bulk to save money, give broadband access to local businesses, or start energy efficient programs to make the neighborhood more environmentally friendly.

On Federal Funding for Public Housing

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In Ritchie Torees and David R. Jones’ article, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has been pointed out has having lost investment over the past few decades. It is noted that many of the residents who are in need of public housing are also facing issues like water leaks, broken elevators, cracked wall and faulty locks. The authors then state that the main support for housing is given by Washington. Although there is a great need for more affordable housing, the article seems a bit leery of any actual expansion of the network, calling it “ambitious.” I think that the most important point the article makes is that affordable housing should be expanded especially in the private sector. Having a home that is private can make a large difference in more personal decisions and may dramatically influence how people end up pursuing the rest of their lives. With all the poor and at times dangerous living conditions described, it is more important than ever to make sure that housing is well-maintained for human use.

Question:

How can we open up more housing using methods other than calling on eminent domain? Or is is not possible?

On Red Hook

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On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 11:45 am, I visited Red Hook, Brooklyn. I started out at the Ikea, which was on Beard Street. This area was at one side of the division point between the two areas that I visited: the commercial on (which included Ikea) and the residential one, a few blocks from the Ikea. The Ikea is probably 10 times the size of the one located near the Broadway Mall in Long Island. I think it is actually the largest Ikea in all of New York. The inside of the Ikea was like that of any other Ikea probably on the rest of this planet. There were quite a few people inside, but not so many that we were crowded. I saw some young people, probably in their mid 20s. One woman was wearing pantsuit pants, so I think she may have been a white-collar worker. Some of the other younger people, however, were just wearing casual jeans. There were also a few families with young children. I also saw some elderly people, probably in their 70s. Some cars were parked outside the shopping complex; none of them were particularly new or clean cars. In fact, most of them were older looking cars.

I say this is the commercial area because I soon as I exited the Ikea, the scenery changed dramatically. There were some trees planted in the sidewalks, but the area was not quite suburban. The sidewalks were cracked and so was the street pavement. I do not think it has been very well maintained for some time considering how large some of the cracks were. The snow had not yet been fully shoveled, but some of it seemed to have been moved. I could see only one set of large footprints. All the other snow was either pushed to the edge of the sidewalk or trampled into a translucent mush. There were a lot of fenced-in lots. Some of them had buildings that seemed to be in use, but others had windows that were boarded up with sheets of wood.

There were buildings with metal garage doors and almost all of them had some sort of graffiti on them, but not the kind with pictures. I saw a lot of haphazardly sprayed words on these garage doors. As I walked around the blocks by the intersection of Dikeman street and Van Brunt street, I saw a large, standard school bus pass by. There could not have been any public school today, so there may have been a Sunday school nearby. I did not see any schools nearby, but I did see two small churches. This area was a sort of mix between residential and semi-commercial buildings. A lot of the buildings had iron grates on their first-floor windows and most of the buildings did not exceed two stories. I did not see many functional buildings other than some housing complexes that were all adjacent to each other. However, I did see a few check cashing facilities. There were some telephone poles and wires above ground and some more old cars parked in the streets.

Overall, I would say that this area is not very affluent and the only really moneyed area is the one side of town where Ikea is. I did not see many people outside in the residential area, so the busiest part of the neighborhood should have also been the Ikea area. The rest of neighborhood feels very run-down and I think this would be a good place to start thinking about what issues Red Hook faces.

Week 2 Assignment

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In Kleniewski’s “Homelessness,” the issue of austere treatment of the homeless is addressed. Kleniewski points out that the homeless are a diverse group of people. I think this is an important point to address because there is often a stigma that all homeless people are where they are for the same reasons or all belong to a certain demographic. Kleniewski also states that though many homeless people may have faced similar situations that lead to their homelessness, it is important to realize that this group is very heterogeneous. Therefore, a number of different measures should be taken to address the problem of taking care of our homeless population. Possible solutions include raising the minimum wage, providing more affordable housing and providing more services for low income families (like healthcare and childcare).

In Frazier’s “Hidden City,” Frazier writes that there have been more homeless people in New York City in recent years than before. People who are part of the mainstream middle class do not realize this, because they cannot see it. This may be due to reasons stated in the above mentioned article: more stringent policing of anti-vagrancy laws and reduction of public benefits that would otherwise keep these people in homes.

Question: Other than top-down measures, are there any other alternative (say, grass-roots-type) measures we can take to educate the public about stereotypes about homeless people in order to try and influence policies made?

On “Theoretical Perspectives on the City” and Black Corona

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At the beginning of “Theoretical Perspectives on the City”, the author explains that Emile Durkheim believed in the “organic solidarity” among people with different social and occupational characteristics. I believe that this is a strong counter-argument to the fear of dissolution of societies with the introduction of the urban city. His functionalist argument that compares the society to an organism does a very good job of showing how, in reality, the specialization of jobs and heterogeneity of the urban population has brought the town closer. The interdependence arising from the division of labor and diversity of people creates a situation in which people are closer because they have to be in order to live a certain quality of life.

This idea carries over into Black Corona, when Gregory discusses the black poor. If we use a functionalist argument to explain this phenomenon, we can see that the effects of institutional racism, historical colonialism and slavery have created a capitalistic system in which the black poor are not needed in this organism of society. Politics have been shaped in such a way as to exclude this population from what is considered mainstream society in order to keep the privileges (like good schools and healthcare) away from the black poor.