By Sadef Ali Kully
The Queens Borough board voted Monday unanimously in favor of a text amendment in flood resilience zoning regulations and a city councilman asserted his opposition to the city’s Flushing-Jamaica rapid transit plan at Borough Hall.
Before the Borough Board held its meeting to vote on amending the city’s flood resilience, there was a presentation from Empire State Development, the state’s chief economic development agency, on recent progress and capital funds available for city projects, especially in Queens.
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Council members I.Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans), Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) and Elizabeth Crowley (D-Glendale) joined community board members to have the vote on the text amendment.
After the presentation, Miller spoke out against the city’s Department of Transportation and the MTA Bus Rapid Transit plan from Flushing to Jamaica, saying that it did not work for residents in southeast Queens because it did not meet their needs.
“We need residents to be able to get to work – this plan does not work for everyone,” Miller told new Queens Department of Transportation Commissioner Nicole Garcia. The Kew Gardens Hills portion of the Flushing-Jamaica Bus Rapid Transit plan has been eliminated after other members of the City Council said it would create congestion as well as take up parking space for residents, but the rest of the bus route is still moving forward.
Board members watched as Garcia stood quietly while listening to Miller speak and later said her office would work with him to address some of the issues that affect his residents.
The voting took place after Brendan Pillar, Waterfront team leader for the Queens office of the Department of City Planning, explained the text amendment to the flood residence zoning rules to simplify rebuilding homes in current zoning regulations after Hurricane Sandy.
The amendment removes the red tape posed by current zoning regulations that have burdened neighborhoods and prevented thousands of homes from rebuilding fully since the October 2012 superstorm. The affected homeowners will be able to elevate their homes to the way they were the day before the stormand rebuild according to guidelines allowing for resilient homes consistent with the visual context of coastal neighborhoods.
City Planning said the need for this zoning amendment emerged from Borough President Katz’s Hurricane Relief Task Force and Build It Back’s community-based approach to planning post-Sandy.
