The Environmental Consequences of Mayor Adams’ City of Yes

We want to apologize about the size of this post, but with thousands of changes to the zoning resolution being proposed by the City of Yes, it is impossible to keep this short. However we suggest that you read the more detailed description of the proposed changes (please click here) to have a better understanding of exactly what is being presented and how it will affect you and your community.

Please Attend Scoping Meeting on Thursday

Scoping Meeting on the City of Yes’s Housing Opportunity Text Amendments!

On Thursday, a Scoping “Meeting” is going to be conducted where the public will be able to make comments and suggestions about the environmental consequences  these Text Amendments may and will have in every neighborhood in New York City.

Please note that the information to the meeting will not be available until the day of meeting.

SCOPING MEETING for the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is scheduled for Thursday, October 26, 2023, at 2PM.

To view the meeting information for the scoping meeting, and gain access to the Zoom meeting on Thursday please click here.

You can obtain all the official documents for this Scoping hearing by clicking here and then click on “Public Documents”.

Overview

In preparation for the “Scoping meeting” to address these negative impacts, the media has been doing its best to send out opinion pages, exhibits and “research” all supporting these changes. If one were to only review what the media has written, one would get the impression that no one objects to these changes, despite the fact that these are city wide changes that will have a tremendous negative impact upon how our city will look and function in the future and jeopardize the safety of its residents.

We will attempt to bring a more balanced perspective to these changes so that on Thursday if you choose to attend the “Scoping Meeting”, you may be armed with some information and facts.

Please Educate Yourself First.

What is really unfair of the Department of City Planning is the many changes that are happening under these proposals and the little bit of time the public has to educate itself. Go to the bottom of this post for helpful things you can do to better understand what effects these changes will have on you and your community.

Text Amendment Changes

Below is the list of Text Amendment Changes.  Please click on this link for a fuller understanding of them.  There are also other changes that we did not disclosed in this email.  For a complete list of the changes please click on this link

Proposed Text Amendment Changes.

1. Apartments Will Now Be on Commercial Strips/Districts
2. Apartments On Top of Manufacturing Businesses.
3. Current Rationale of Keeping Manufacturing Businesses Separate from Residential 
4. Apartment Buildings in Backyards
5. Building Size Increases – Increase in Floor Area Ratio “FAR” 
6. Building Size Increases for Irregular Lot Sizes
7. Building Tall, Narrow Buildings – Removing Sliver Law
8. Bulk Sizes Increase without Public Review (Eliminating the Uniform Land Use Procedure “ULURP”)
9. Bulk Definition
10. Conversion to Residential Housing – Removal of Restrictions
11. Dwelling Unit Factor- Total Removal
12. Height Limits – Increasing all Height Limits
13. Lot Sizes Reduction in Low Density Area – Splitting Lots in Half
14. Parking Requirements – Total Removal
15. Property Line – Building Right Up to Property Line
16. Property Line – Existing Buildings Can Build on Space Between and Around Buildings – Infill
17. Single Room Occupancies “SROs” Are Back
18. Universal Affordability Preference “UAP”– New Word for “Affordable” Housing? – Increase in Building Heights By 20% 

Limitations on the Environmental Review

Environmental Categories the City Will Examine

The City must examine these proposals against a list of possible environmental consequences (see list below) such as shadow impacts. They are however, not limited to this list and can examine other areas of environmental impact if the rezoning warrants it.

Such as increase in crime, violence and public safety, as a result of creating SRO back into the community.

The City Will Not Examine All Communities for Their Negative Environmental Impacts

Despite these text amendments being done for all of New York City, DCP has decided to only study what they call “Representative Neighborhoods” to determine the possible negative environmental effects, instead of taking the time to really determine how these vast and drastic changes will affect each community board (59 in total). One can surmise that the “representative neighborhoods” will produce results that will cause the least amount of harm to the community.

For example, you can bet your bottom dollar they will not be using Gowanus as a Representative Neighborhood, despite the fact that Gowanus can now see an even greater number of apartments and heights in their community which would adversely impact upon their sewage system that constantly overflows and is out of compliance with so many City, State and Federal Laws.

Below is the list of Negative Consequences the City has determined will occur as a result of these Text Amendment changes

1. Socioeconomic Conditions
2. Community Facilities and Service (they claim there is no need to analyze for additional police and fires services)
3. Open Space
4. Shadows
5. Historic and Cultural Resources
6. Urban Design and Visual Resources
7. Natural Resources
8. Hazardous Materials
9. Water and Sewer Infrastructure
10. Solid Waste and Sanitation Services
11. Energy
12. Transportation
13. Air Quality
14. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change
15. Noise
16. Public Health
17. Neighborhood Character
18. Construction

Five Things You Can DO!

Share this Email with Everyone

Put Pressure on Your City Council Person

Attend the Scoping Hearing on Thursday, at 2pm

Continue to Support Us (see how below)

To better understand the changes and how they will be affecting your communities (every community in NYC will be affected) it is important for you to know your existing Zoning, both where you live and your surrounding community. The best way to find out is to contact your local community board, (call 311) and ask for a zoning map of your entire Community District, or go to the New York Department of City Planning’s website and enter your address, under finding your zoning.

However, if you don’t want to do that, then this is a rule of thumb that you can consider. If you reside in a low-density area, where there are a lot of small one to two family detached or semi-detached homes. These are R-1 to R5 zones. For medium density districts which may have one to two family homes but may also have apartment buildings of up to six to eight stories, the zonings can be from R-5 to R7. For higher density zones where the buildings may be 10 stories or higher it would be from R6-R10. Please note that normally the higher zoning may prevail if you have a combination of residential development including single and multi-family apartments.

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