Tony Nunziato for NY State Assembly - Woodside-Maspeth Rezoning Will Lead to Overdevelopment

On a January evening after the Woodside/Maspeth zoning study was at last certified, representatives of the Department of City Planning and Community Board 2 held an informational meeting and assessment of the study’s significance before more than 100 concerned residents in the school cafeteria at St. Mary’s Winfield. Those residents’ concern, as it has been for several years, was overdevelopment. Put simply, this is the process whereby housing developers come into neighborhoods with oneand two-family homes and, by means both crude and artful, erect multifamily dwellings that leave the neighborhoods overcrowded and social services (schools, for instance) overburdened. The presentation demonstrated that the city’s response to overdevelopment is sincere and valuable but, if some of the objections raised are accurate, may lead to unfulfilled expectations and unfortunate consequences.

It is a proposed expansion, however, that may be the most radical part of the entire rezoning plan. “An R7X zoning district,” City Planning states, “with a C2-3 (commercial) overlay is proposed along the frontage of Queens Boulevard for a 23-block span from 50th Street to 73rd Street.” The department’s Queens Boulevard proposal has considered the current mixture of residential and commercial segments along the thoroughfare, concluded that many of the commercial ones are in a declining condition and recommends taking them away and putting higher-density housing in their place. (Commercial activity, presumably in a healthier state, could go on at the street level of the new buildings.) The department believes that this would provide needed housing while taking the pressure off the side streets that have struggled for years with overdevelopment. Concentrating on the north side of the boulevard from 57th Street to 63rd Drive, which is currently zoned R7X/C22, the department says it is “characterized by sixto eight-story residential and community facility buildings exhibiting high street walls with central entrance courts and occupying much of their respective lots. The proposal would essentially extend this context along Queens Boulevard from 50th Street to 73rd Street.” Size limits are specified as the department says the R7X district “would allow new development at a maximum of 5.0 FAR, a minimum base of 60 feet, a maximum base of 85 feet and a maximum building height of 125 feet. Typical new developments would range from 10 to 12 stories with ground floor retail.”

Tony Nunziato of Community Board 5 came forward to denounce what some might consider the plan’s crown jewel, the R7X proposal. Going from a current general height of 35 feet to 125 feet would be a radical shock, he said, adding that 12-story buildings on Queens Boulevard would impose a massive burden on the neighborhoods that already exist nearby and also on the neighborhoods that would be created in the process. He said it would be much better to put R6B or R5B zones along the boulevard. In contrast to the 5 FAR, 85foot maximum front wall height and 125-foot maximum building height that R7X specifies, R6B specifies 2 FAR, a 40-foot maximum front wall height and a 50-foot maximum building height; while R5B specifies a 1.35 FAR, a 30-foot maximum front wall height and a 33-foot maximum building height. Also on hand to express her displeasure was Roe Dario of COMET (Communities of Maspeth and Elmhurst Together), a civilian group working with the 104th, 108th and 110th Police Precincts. She noted that the R7X plan ventures into Community Board 4 territory. She said that better services for the current populace are needed, more than new housing. Build schools, not apartments, she advised.

More here: Woodside-Maspeth Rezoning Stems Overdevelopment, Queens Gazette, 2/1/06