{"id":1579,"date":"2023-03-14T11:27:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T15:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/?p=1579"},"modified":"2023-03-14T11:30:34","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T15:30:34","slug":"letter-to-councilwoman-crystal-hudson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/2023\/03\/14\/letter-to-councilwoman-crystal-hudson\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Councilwoman Crystal Hudson"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\"\"<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

Over the past several years, there has been a lot of discussion about rezoning initiatives in Crown Heights, always under the premise that it will lead to more housing, thus reducing housing prices and providing more “affordable” housing to the existing residents.<\/span><\/p>

There have also been comments about Councilwoman Crystal Hudson planning a district wide rezoning, whose district covers both Community Board 9 (Crown Heights South) and Community Board 8 (Crown Heights North).<\/p>

As a result of these rumors (mentioned in the local newspapers) MTOPP and members of other community groups met with Councilwoman Hudson yesterday for about 40 minutes to discuss various issues of concern.<\/p>

It appeared that Ms. Hudson was not aware of the District Wide Rezoning that had\u00a0occurred in CB8 in 2013, nor the effects of that rezoning. \u00a0Thus, we have replied to Hudson with the below letter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

Dear Councilwoman Hudson:<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Yesterday at our meeting, you seemed not to know about the Crown Heights North Rezoning <\/a>which took place in the years 2010-2013 and was approved by the City Council on September 24, 2013.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

This was a massive upzoning of about 55-blocks which caused a wave of displacement of both residents of color and small businesses. Despite the promise of the creation of affordable housing this rezoning in fact did the opposite: it increased housing prices throughout the district, resulting in\u00a0CB8 having the largest number of residents removed from its community due to rent increases.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

This was an upzoning changing commercial corridors to residential, increasing the Floor Area Ratio “FAR” (the amount of space that can be built on a specific lot size, the larger the FAR the more build-able space) and placing height limits with increased FARs, (which is a contextual upzoning<\/u>).<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Since this rezoning Community Board 8 “CB8”, has had 20,000 residents removed from this community, showing how negatively impactful rezonings are in low to moderate income communities of\u00a0color. CB8 has the highest rate of evictions for all of Brooklyn.<\/i><\/span><\/p>

Please click on the link above to the\u00a0 Department of City Planning website\u00a0which shows the rezoning changes that happened to this community under the premise that more “affordable” housing would be available to the residents in the community, thus reducing rents, when in fact it has done the opposite.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Not sure how much more evidence is needed to show the negative impacts that “rezonings” have on communities of color.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

However, right across the street of Eastern Parkway in Community Board 9, we were able to stop our district wide\/neighborhood rezoning and the number of people who have been displaced (due to lawful and unlawful landlord practices) has not amounted into the double digits that our neighbors (CB8) have suffered.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

We have been able to maintain our present rent-stabilized tenants’ apartments, no buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt with increased heights (removing old tenants and small mom and pop businesses) and our tenants have been able to stay in their homes and apartments.\u00a0 Our community continues to be labeled as a low-rise community despite it being the densest community in Brooklyn. And we are still a predominately community of color.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Thus, showing that the strategy that is being employed in white and middle-class communities not<\/u><\/strong> to engage in rezonings works even for low to moderate income communities of color.<\/i><\/p>

Please Note<\/u>:\u00a0Two\u00a0white communities veered from this strategy (SoHo\/NoHo and Gowanus) with results that Gowanus has had the highest increase in the housing\u00a0market (65%) than any other neighborhood in NYC and making it one of the most expensive neighborhoods in NYC.<\/i><\/span><\/p>

I sent you a graph yesterday about that but will include it again.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Again we want to thank you for meeting with us, and we hope that the information that we are sharing with you will be helpful to you as you move forward with the work of protecting your community residents from displacement.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

MTOPP
FLAC<\/i><\/p><\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr>

\"\"<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

Image credit<\/u><\/strong>: Andrew Berman from Villiage Preservation, and data disclosed in\u00a0the New York Times.<\/span><\/p>

Andrew Burman did an excellent presentation<\/a>\u00a0which goes into great detail about why the premise that upzonings, and increased housing supply is\u00a0the answer to our housing crisis\u00a0is incorrect.\u00a0 It starts at 43 minutes into the video and is worth the watch.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

The above\u00a0chart shows that communities that have had upzonings and increased FARs have also had the greatest increase in their housing markets prices. \u00a0Whereas, the communities that have had\u00a0downzonings\u00a0(which hasn’t happened since Mayor Bloomberg) which is a decrease in FAR,\u00a0no rezonings at all or had landmarking protections, prices have in fact decreased, keeping those communities’ prices stable and affordable to the existing residents.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

Please Note:<\/u>\u00a0The SoHo rezoning results are based upon data before it had its newest\u00a0rezoning done, which was an upzoning in 2022.<\/em><\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div> (more…)<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past several years, there has been a lot of discussion about rezoning initiatives in Crown Heights, always under the premise that it will lead to more housing, thus reducing housing prices and providing more “affordable” housing to the existing residents. There have also been comments about Councilwoman Crystal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fight-against-rezoning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1579"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions\/1592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtopp.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}