By Dustin Brown
Community Board 2 voted overwhelmingly last week against a series of changes to the Department of City Planning’s rezoning proposal for Long Island City .
Voting 23-to-4 to oppose the proposed modifications, the board cited concerns that the changes would increase development in the area and destroy the scale of small blocks in addition to eliminating manufacturing and residential space .
“The feeling is we’re developing another city that’s going to be vacant at night,” said Stephen Cooper, CB 2 land use committee chairman.
John Young, director of the Queens Office for City Planning, presented the modifications last Thursday to the community board, which earlier this year had voted in favor of the original plan.
The area slated for rezoning, dubbed the Special Long Island City Mixed Use District, covers 37 blocks east of the Queensboro Bridge, bounded generally by 23rd Street on the west, 41st Avenue on the north and Sunnyside Yards to the east.
The rezoning is intended to transform Long Island City into a major business district, allowing construction of taller buildings and increasing population density.
Young said the three modifications were based on comments gathered through the mandated review process for land use changes.
The changes would allow two blocks — one at Queens Plaza and another at Court Square — to be developed with taller buildings than originally proposed, while building heights on another block at Queens Plaza North would be capped at a lower level. Minimum street wall heights along narrow streets would be reduced and the maximum allowable number of parking spaces for any development would increase from 100 to 250.
“Some of the things they’re proposing make sense, and had they come to us in the first place, that way I think I would have understood it,” Cooper said. “It’s just the way it was done.”
Although the city Planning Commission is not bound by the CB 2 vote, the board’s input is “a recommendation that they’re supposed to consider,” Cooper said.
“We’re going to force them, whenever it’s reasonable to do so, to conscientiously evaluate the proposed changes that they intend to make to our community,” he said.
Although the district is being rezoned to foster mixed-use, including offices, stores, manufacturers and residences, community board members said the proposal does not sufficiently encourage residential development.
“In spite of the fact that they give lip service to this being mixed-use, it’s not,” Cooper said. “They’re obviously not pushing residences.”
Board members also expressed concern that manufacturers now located in and around the rezoning area, at present largely industrial, would be forced out once the spaces begin commanding higher rents.
Young stressed the rezoning is designed to accommodate mixed uses and city planning would not impose regulations to favor any one type of development.
The city Planning Commission is expected to vote on the zoning proposal at its May 23 meeting, Young said last week.
“It’s important for us to remember they’re going to go and do this anyway,” said board member Lisa Deller. “There’s going to be a rezoning of that area whether we like it or not, and I just would hope that it would be as fair and friendly to the community as possible.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
