They say you cannot fight City Hall and as I walked away from a meeting hosted by the Station Road Civic Association April 21, I wondered if the expression may have some truth to it. The main topic of the evening was the Auburndale rezoning.
Two representatives from the Department of City Planning, Debbie Carney and Edgar Bajana, came to address the concerns the neighborhood had on the proposal that the agency has set up for this area. Although several issues had already been ironed out between the community and DCP regarding rezoning, one crucial area continues to be a sticking point for both sides.
The community wishes to have the area bounded by Station Road to the north, 42nd Avenue to the south, Utopia Parkway to the east and Auburndale Lane to the west rezoned from an M1 to an R4B zoning, which would be a contextual zoning considering the surrounding areas contain residential homes.
The DCP wishes to leave it as M1, citing it is a contextual rezoning based on what is already there, which are car service dealerships who have been poor neighbors to the surrounding community. During the course of the meeting, it became clear the community would not budge and neither would the DCP, which is taking its orders from the Bloomberg administration.
Why is that when members of a community wish to improve their neighborhood, they do not seem to get anywhere and it becomes apparent the interests of business owners are more valuable than the interests of homeowners?
The M1 zoning needs to go. Hasn’t our area had enough problems with unscrupulous developers and inappropriate zoning that made it all possible? One thing I can say is this community will fight to eliminate the M1 zoning, as it is not appropriate for the area.
And although they say you cannot fight City Hall, this civic association has proven you can.
Rose Giordano-Forkan
Flushing
