Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

What follows is a template for you to copy and paste into an email to comment on the proposed demolition and alleged transfer of ownership of the NYCHA Chelsea properties [public property] to a company controlled by Stephen Ross and Related Companies [private ownership].

Public Comment Opposing the Proposed Demolition of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea&body=Dear NYCHA, HPD and HUD officials,

I am writing to strongly oppose the proposed demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea NYCHA developments as outlined in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).

The environmental impacts presented in the DEIS — including unmitigated noise, severe shadow impacts on parks and schools, and increased traffic congestion — are unacceptable. These harms would last for decades, with construction projected to continue for 16 to 30 years.

The proposal to demolish 24 public housing buildings and replace them with luxury towers is not only environmentally destructive — it is socially irresponsible. The alternative of rehabilitation and infill has been dismissed without serious consideration, despite being more cost-effective, less disruptive, and widely supported by tenants and community members.

Furthermore, the financial structure of this plan raises serious concerns. A $1.9 billion no-bid contract with a private developer—without a competitive procurement process or public transparency—undermines public trust and fiscal accountability.

I urge HPD and NYCHA to reject the current proposal, make rehabilitation the preferred alternative, and return to the community with a plan that prioritizes the health, stability, and dignity of public housing residents.

Sincerely,

[Your Full Name]
[Your Address or Affiliation, optional]

Email to: nepa_env@hpd.nyc.gov

Posted Sunday, May 18, 2025

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

NYCHA: The Language of Reinforced Spin

At a Tenants Meeting this Week, Related and Essence Swear they have Never Misled the Public

CHELSEA — It was a routine tenants meeting: a group of NYCHA tenants just trying to figure out if the demolition plan is a done deal and whether or when they would be forced to move. Instead, the meeting became an advanced seminar in creative vocabulary management. Tenants argued that they have been given inaccurate, incorrect misleading information.

“We’ve never said anything misleading. We are very careful about what we say.”
— Jamar Adams, ESSENCE, Thursday night.

Editor's Note: Photo at right shows FEC Chelsea BEFORE. Essence is a minority company controlled by a former Related Companies Executive.  Related Companies put up $366 million for the project.  The two entities are partnering on demolishing and developing the FEC NYCHA property. Stephen Ross & Related Companies have been feeding at the NYC public trough something fierce ever since Bloomberg was elected Mayor.  See relevant story to begin to understand how the rich get richer and the poor get distracted by TV News - https://www.gothambuzz.nyc/article/192/michael-bloomberg-record-the-part-you-wont-see-in-his-ads

That claim might’ve held up — if not for a July 26, 2023 letter sent to tenants Related and Essence own consultant, HOU: “As you have heard, in the next few months, Essence/Related will be the property owner and manager. NYCHA will still be involved in the property, holding the long-term lease which guarantees that the Fulton Elliott-Chelsea remains affordable.”

Related/Essence as the owner, and NYCHA as the lessee? How did that happen? I, for one, find this to be misleading.

Three Voices Too Many

Meanwhile, three long-serving Manhattan community board members were quietly shown the door:
 
1) Viren Brahmbhatt, M-CB4: Architect. Outspoken critic of NYCHA demolition. Not reappointed after the local Council Member reportedly suggested he “step down.”

2) Liz Waytkus & 3) Signe Mortensen, M-CB9: Long standing public servants. Gone without (much of an) explanation. But not without a pattern. As reported in The City.

No misconduct. No absenteeism. Maybe, just maybe too many questions asked out loud.

Photo at right shows FEC Chelsea AFTER.

These matters will be heard at the upcoming City Planning Commission hearing. It goes without saying: of course, you want to spend the whole day in the windowless basement at 120 Broadway!

When: Wednesday, May 21, 10AM
What: A Public Hearing of the City Planning Commission
Where: CPC 120 Broadway, Lower Concourse Level (sounds better than basement, but yeah, it's in the basement!)

A friendly reminder, that democracy works only if you open the door. Read my piece, subtitled The City Belongs to Those who Show Up. https://laylaforny.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5fee36170039c389b10e5a177&id=62835c315e&e=a84ab38416

See you next week! Warmly and decisively,

Layla Law-Gisiko
District Leader, AD 75 Part A
Received & Posted May 18, 2025

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Study Shows SoHo/NoHo Rezoning Has Failed to Deliver on Promised Affordable Housing, Actually Destroying More Affordable Housing than It Has Created

At One-Third Mark of 10-Year Period for Rezoning’s Projected Impacts, No Housing — Affordable or Otherwise — Has Been Built, Despite Projections of Hundreds of Units

Manhattan — Nonprofit Village Preservation today released a new report analyzing development resulting from the December 2021 rezoning of SoHo and NoHo. The study marks the one-third point of the 10-year study which accompanied the rezoning, which provided the legally required projections for what the rezoning would do and the rationale for its adoption. The new Village Preservation study found the rezoning has fallen far short of those projections of housing and affordable housing creation, and has already violated promises that the rezoning would not result in the loss of any existing affordable housing and would not allow new luxury housing to be built without including affordable housing within the project. The actual results align almost perfectly with critics’ predictions about what the true impacts of the rezoning would be: incentivizing the creation of boutique offices and super-luxury housing without any affordable housing.

Three years and four months out from its approval, the study found actual results of the rezoning include:

Not a single unit of the promised affordable housing has materialized, compared to the 127 to 191 units that should have been created by now based upon the City projections.

Not a single unit of housing period has been built, compared to the 610 units that should have been created by now based upon the City projections.

As critics predicted, commercial development (e.g., corporate offices) has been built under the rezoning where the City projected housing would be built.

Developers have used the many loopholes in the rezoning pointed out by critics to begin creating super-luxury housing (not yet completed) without including any affordable housing.

Developers have eliminated existing affordable rent-regulated housing to clear the way for new luxury developments allowed under the rezoning, which the City insisted would never occur and critics charged would be a typical result of the rezoning. As a result, the rezoning has at this point destroyed more affordable housing than it has created.
 
A lawsuit by NYU challenging one provision in the rezoning will, if successful, make matters even worse, by opening up even larger loopholes enabling development in the rezoning area without including any housing or affordable housing.

The gaping discrepancy between the promises of the SoHo/NoHo rezoning and what it actually delivered is entirely consistent with the City’s long record of making false promises and inaccurate predictions about its rezonings.

Read the report HERE. https://villagepreservation.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=956ec6f4e6a8fc8f619795717&id=2605ac3562&e=3bc3a7cd7c

Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman said: “The failure of the SoHo/NoHo rezoning to live up to any of its promises and create even a single unit of housing or affordable housing, while shocking, is not at all surprising. It’s unfortunate that every criticism we levied against the plan — that it would encourage commercial rather than residential development, that it would encourage the demolition of existing affordable housing, that it would allow new luxury condos without a single unit of affordable housing — has now come to pass. These outcomes were entirely predictable, but the Mayor and City Council, cheered on by Big Real Estate, insisted that these zoning changes would deliver on false promises of equity
and affordability. All they have managed to do so far is make SoHo and NoHo less affordable, less residential, and less accessible. What’s particularly unfortunate is that in spite of this, the City continues to make false promises about similar rezoning plans which it continues to push. The results of this rezoning should be a warning to all New Yorkers and policymakers.”

City Councilmember Christopher Marte, who represents SoHo and Lower Manhattan in the City Council, said: “This rezoning was a scam from the start, and this report confirms what we knew all along: the promises of affordable housing were a smokescreen for luxury development and commercial expansion. Not a single new unit of housing — affordable or otherwise — has been built, while developers exploit every loophole to avoid affordability requirements and demolish existing rent-regulated homes. The City lied to the public and now the only thing rising in SoHo, NoHo, and Chinatown is the rent. The Department of City Planning should learn their lesson and implement community-based, not developer-driven, plans if they truly want to resolve the affordability crisis.”

Amit Solomon of the Coalition for Fairness in SoHo and NoHo said: “The SoHo/NoHo/Chinatown rezoning was a deeply flawed policy that undermined housing stability and fueled real estate speculation, all while failing to deliver the affordable housing it claimed to champion. Its centerpiece — a so-called ‘Arts Fund’ — was a revenue generating scheme that stripped the founding artists and other residents of their legal right to their homes unless they paid an exorbitant fee. Meanwhile, the plan handed out as-of-right benefits to luxury developers and commercial interests at no cost. Last year, a unanimous Appellate Division panel ruled the ‘Arts Fund’ unconstitutional, underscoring the fundamental injustice at the heart of this rezoning.”

Pete Davies, Steering Committee Member of the Broadway Residents Coalition (SoHo), said: “The SoHo-NoHo-Chinatown Rezoning was a sham from the very beginning: a commercial real estate development scheme allowing unique artist-built neighborhoods to be dismantled. Village Preservation's ‘Taking Stock’ report shows that the promised ‘affordable’ housing is nowhere to be found, while long-standing housing units are being lost to commercial conversions. A set of ‘commitments’ made to the re-zoned communities haven’t materialized, and the so-called ‘protections’ for residential tenants are nothing but a mirage.”

Sean Sweeney, Director of the SoHo Alliance, said: “The NYPD has run out the 3-card-monte players and other assorted flim-flam artists who’ve plagued SoHo recently. It’s unfortunate the same cannot be done to the astroturf groups like Open New York and their benefactors in the real estate industry who pushed for this rezoning and pulled the biggest con game since The Sting. May I dare say, ‘We told you so.’”

Village Preservation has documented the great discrepancies between the promises and projections made from other recent NYC rezonings and their actual results — read HERE.

Village Preservation is a 501(c)(3) community-based nonprofit founded in 1989 whose mission is to document, celebrate, and help preserve the special architectural and cultural history of Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo. Their accomplishments include securing landmark designation of the Stonewall Inn and other sites that were the city’s first landmarks honoring LGBTQ+ history, as well as civil rights sights such as the former NAACP headquarters and abolitionist Jacob Day’s house at 50 West 13th Street. The group is currently campaigning to landmark the city’s oldest Spanish-language church, Our Lady of Guadalupe; the former NYC Woman’s Suffrage League Headquarters; and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, which would be the city’s first landmarks honoring the history of people with disabilities.

Click to read - https://media.villagepreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/09094519/Report-The-SoHo-NoHo-Chinatown-Rezoning-Taking-Stock-FINAL.pdf

Andrew Berman
Executive Director, Village Preservation
https://www.villagepreservation.org
May 9, 2025
Received 5.12.25 / Posted 5.18.25

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Dream of cool grass fields It can come true

The “Touch Grass” bill introduced by City Council Member Christopher Marte will improve our health and air quality by requiring NYC Parks to use real grass instead of hot, unhealthy plastic artificial turf.

We need grassroots support to grow our grass:
1)         Contact your City Council Member, and urge them to co-sponsor and actively support the bill. Also ask them to support the increased Parks budget, which will enable them to maintain sustainable natural grass fields. Remind them to think of the long-term costs and benefits.*
2)         Contact City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, urging her to include the Touch Grass bill into the agenda for the April 23 Parks Committee hearing.
3)         As City Council and mayoral races heat up, inform candidates about the bill and why we need it.

For legislative contact information and links to research and news about artificial turf, see our Actions Now! page https://eastriverparkaction.org/actions- now/.
*While grass requires maintenance, so does artificial turf, such as cleaning and replacing infill, and it does not "grow back," making it less cost-effective over time than grass.

Playing on real grass decreases injuries. Grass is cooler than the air while artificial turf can be more than 50 degrees hotter. Synthetic grass releases microplastics and other harmful chemicals into the air—and onto players. Photo by Pat Arnow

East River Park is forever Indigenous land of Lenapehoking. We honor and respect the land of this park by advocating for its renewal as a biodiverse, healthful ecosystem.

East River Park Action Committee
April 9, 2025
Posted 5.18.25

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

A Budget That Helps New Yorkers a Little Bit Isn’t Good Enough

While Gov. Hochul’s proposed changes to Foundation Aid would drive bigger-than-expected increases to many high need school districts, NYC schools would get $400 million less

In response to Governor Hochul’s executive budget announcement, the public education advocacy organization Alliance for Quality Education released the following statement:

 “In her addresses today and last week, Governor Hochul indicated her willingness to support policy changes that can make the lives of families and children a little better, including some positive proposals, such as universal school meals and expanding the child tax credit. 

“We need to invest in measures in the state budget that will transform people’s lives, not just make them a little bit better,” said Marina Marcou-O’Malley and Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, Co-Executive Directors, Alliance for Quality Education. “By the Governor’s own acknowledgement, New York’s tax revenues and economy are by all metrics thriving, and there is no excuse. But the impact of the changes she is proposing, and how they’re enacted, matters tremendously. Instead of taking a bold stance to protect New Yorkers from any potential threat from the new administration in DC, the Governor chose to do very little, prompting New Yorkers to address their issues to the feds.

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Education that Lifts Up All of Our Students

As New York City’s first openly dyslexic mayor, I know what it is like to not have the support I needed in school growing up. School was often difficult for me. I was scared of being called on by the teacher and my fellow students made fun of me. I know how important it is that our children have a bright start and the support they need for a bold future.

That is why this administration is investing in upstream solutions in our education system, creating conditions that improve outcomes for all our students. We don’t want our children to fall behind because they learn differently, we want them to start out ahead. And this week we are taking another big step forward with two major initiatives: a new vision for special education and a new math curriculum, “NYC Solves.”

“NYC Solves,” is a major citywide initiative to make mathematics more accessible for all students — no matter where they go to school or what language they speak at home. This new program will revolutionize how algebra is taught in schools and ensure that all our students have foundational math skills and are being encouraged to excel in mathematics at every level.

We are also creating the Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning (DIAL), which will be led by a new Deputy Chancellor for Inclusive and Accessible Learning Christina Foti. This new division will utilize a $750 million budget and 1,300 staff to focus on supporting multilingual learners and students with disabilities, so that every student can be prepared for a rewarding career and long-term economic security — no matter their background or ability.

The work of DIAL will be guided by external voices through a new advisory council charged with helping shape support systems for immigrant students and their families, so that we can improve educational opportunities and outcomes for every student.

These two new initiatives build on the generational investments we have already made in public education.

In just two years, our administration has implemented a major initiative, “NYC Reads,” to fundamentally change how students learn to read literacy as the core focus and priority of New York City’s public schools. We have also invested over $600 million to protect critical programs that were funded with temporary stimulus dollars, including arts funding, teacher recruitment efforts, restorative justice programming, computer science programs, “Civics for All,” school social workers and psychologists, and much more.  Our mandated universal dyslexia screening

for all students are helping us get students the support they need early on, and we have created the first-ever public school dedicated to supporting students with dyslexia and related learning disabilities. 

We have also provided over 42,000 students with offers for a 3-K seat — an increase of 300 percent in the last five years, and we are continuing to work to ensure that every child who wants an early childhood education seat will have access to one. We have also added 57 Gifted and Talented programs citywide and added over 26,000 classroom seats through major construction and modernization projects. I am also pleased to report that nine new schools will open in the coming school year, including a new high school focused on health care.

And because we know that learning doesn’t only take place in the classroom and during the school year, we have expanded popular programs like Summer Rising to bring 110,000 students summer programming. We are committed to helping students enter the workforce with programs like FutureReadyNYC that connect our students to apprenticeships that lead to good-paying careers. This work has resulted in students earning a cumulative $8.2 million from paid work experiences at top companies over the past two years alone.

Our New York City Public Schools chancellor, David Banks, and I are both graduates of the New York City school system, and we are committed to continuing our city’s legacy of excellence in public education. We are not going to allow another Eric to sit in the classroom, hoping not to be called on. We are making sure that every student has access to the support and resources they need. We are lifting up our young people and putting them on a pathway to a bright future and making sure that our education system remains unmatched anywhere in this nation.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
June 24, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Celebrating Juneteenth with a New Heritage Walk, Landmark, and Progress

As the second Black mayor of New York City, I am proud to celebrate Juneteenth, a day that commemorates June 19, 1865, when every enslaved Black American was finally free. This is a day of importance not just for Black Americans, but for all Americans. It is a day when the promise of freedom finally matched Black Americans’ lived reality. It is a day when the freedom for which America is known for around the world finally became available to a wider group of citizens.

However, as we all know, that was only the start of a longer struggle — a struggle for equal access from housing and health care to the ballot box and boardrooms that continues to the present day. In honor of Juneteenth and the progress we have made over the past centuries and decades, our administration wants to play its part in using the present to reckon with our past so we can build a better future.

New Yorkers walk through neighborhoods like Brooklyn every day, unaware of the history right under their feet and surrounding them. To tell that history, we launched “More Than a Brook: Brooklyn Abolitionist Heritage Walk" an interactive audio tour that explores Brooklyn’s history as a critical neighborhood for the National Abolitionist Movement and the Underground Railroad. The 4.5-mile walkable path incorporates 19 stops highlighting the many landmark sites that capture the borough’s rich abolitionist history. Along the way, in addition to seeing famous abolitionist sites, you can learn about important local historic figures, including businesswoman Elizabeth Gloucester, pioneering sisters Dr. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward and educator Sarah J. Tompkins Garnet, and Plymouth Church preacher Henry Ward Beecher. The tour can be accessed on your smartphone, tablet, or other device through the Landmark Preservation Commission’s website. With this interactive tour, our city can celebrate the heroes who stood up against injustice, risked their lives, and fought for the freedom they deserved.

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - More Than a Brook: Brooklyn Abolitionist Heritage Walk - COPY & PASTE -  https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/787cf87e6c52439bad2dde32d19775d1/page/HOME/

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - Brooklyn’s history as a critical neighborhood - COPY & PASTE - https://app.box.com/s/y854vxrd6t7lerholbzub4nha347sygt

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - Landmark Preservation Commission’s website - COPY & PASTE - https://www.nyc.gov/site/lpc/index.page

The city’s abolitionist history lives across all five boroughs. In Staten Island’s Oakwood Heights, we are commemorating our shared history by designating the Frederick Douglass Memorial Park as a landmark. The Frederick Douglass Memorial Park is the only non-sectarian cemetery founded by — and specifically for — New York City’s Black community. The memorial park opened in 1935, offering a dignified cemetery for Black New Yorkers at a time when discrimination and segregation excluded them from other burial sites and limited them to substandard facilities and services. In a time when others turned their backs on Black New Yorkers, this park chose to open its doors. The 14.88-acre burial site memorializes Black heritage and honors the generations of Black Americans who are buried there. Frederick Douglass Memorial Park offered a dignified and dedicated space for the Black community to honor those who transitioned. But, our remembrance of Juneteenth cannot be just symbolic, but substantive.

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - Frederick Douglass Memorial Park - COPY & PASTE - https://app.box.com/s/2rkvmk1iq736zvz15o10e5s1jyywxoyv

As recently as last January, Black New Yorkers were four times more likely to be unemployed than white New Yorkers, but, thanks to our efforts, we have been able to narrow this gap, and now the unemployment rate for Black New Yorkers is at its lowest point in half a decade. This marks the first time since 2019 that the Black unemployment rate in New York City has been below 8 percent. And between January 1, 2022, and April 1, 2024, the Black unemployment rate in the five boroughs decreased from 10.7 percent to 7.9 percent — a 26 percent decrease. While our work is never done, our city is making real progress in delivering economic equity.

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - unemployment rate for Black New Yorkers is at its lowest point in half a decade - COPY & PASTE - https://edc.nyc/sites/default/files/2024-04/NYCEDC-NYC-Economic-Snapshot-April-2024.pdf

This Juneteenth, I call on all New Yorkers to learn about and honor our city and nation’s inspiring and troubled past and continue to build on the progress we have made. Let us celebrate American ideals, American freedoms, and American potential, together. And let us start right here, in the most diverse city on the globe, a place where those from all walks of life live side by side, proud to call themselves by one name: New Yorkers.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
June 16, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Celebrating Juneteenth with a New Heritage Walk, Landmark, and Progress

As the second Black mayor of New York City, I am proud to celebrate Juneteenth, a day that commemorates June 19, 1865, when every enslaved Black American was finally free. This is a day of importance not just for Black Americans, but for all Americans. It is a day when the promise of freedom finally matched Black Americans’ lived reality. It is a day when the freedom for which America is known for around the world finally became available to a wider group of citizens.

However, as we all know, that was only the start of a longer struggle — a struggle for equal access from housing and health care to the ballot box and boardrooms that continues to the present day. In honor of Juneteenth and the progress we have made over the past centuries and decades, our administration wants to play its part in using the present to reckon with our past so we can build a better future.

New Yorkers walk through neighborhoods like Brooklyn every day, unaware of the history right under their feet and surrounding them. To tell that history, we launched “More Than a Brook: Brooklyn Abolitionist Heritage Walk" an interactive audio tour that explores Brooklyn’s history as a critical neighborhood for the National Abolitionist Movement and the Underground Railroad. The 4.5-mile walkable path incorporates 19 stops highlighting the many landmark sites that capture the borough’s rich abolitionist history. Along the way, in addition to seeing famous abolitionist sites, you can learn about important local historic figures, including businesswoman Elizabeth Gloucester, pioneering sisters Dr. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward and educator Sarah J. Tompkins Garnet, and Plymouth Church preacher Henry Ward Beecher. The tour can be accessed on your smartphone, tablet, or other device through the Landmark Preservation Commission’s website. With this interactive tour, our city can celebrate the heroes who stood up against injustice, risked their lives, and fought for the freedom they deserved.

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - More Than a Brook: Brooklyn Abolitionist Heritage Walk - COPY & PASTE -  https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/787cf87e6c52439bad2dde32d19775d1/page/HOME/

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - Brooklyn’s history as a critical neighborhood - COPY & PASTE - https://app.box.com/s/y854vxrd6t7lerholbzub4nha347sygt

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - Landmark Preservation Commission’s website - COPY & PASTE - https://www.nyc.gov/site/lpc/index.page

The city’s abolitionist history lives across all five boroughs. In Staten Island’s Oakwood Heights, we are commemorating our shared history by designating the Frederick Douglass Memorial Park as a landmark. The Frederick Douglass Memorial Park is the only non-sectarian cemetery founded by — and specifically for — New York City’s Black community. The memorial park opened in 1935, offering a dignified cemetery for Black New Yorkers at a time when discrimination and segregation excluded them from other burial sites and limited them to substandard facilities and services. In a time when others turned their backs on Black New Yorkers, this park chose to open its doors. The 14.88-acre burial site memorializes Black heritage and honors the generations of Black Americans who are buried there. Frederick Douglass Memorial Park offered a dignified and dedicated space for the Black community to honor those who transitioned. But, our remembrance of Juneteenth cannot be just symbolic, but substantive.

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - Frederick Douglass Memorial Park - COPY & PASTE - https://app.box.com/s/2rkvmk1iq736zvz15o10e5s1jyywxoyv

As recently as last January, Black New Yorkers were four times more likely to be unemployed than white New Yorkers, but, thanks to our efforts, we have been able to narrow this gap, and now the unemployment rate for Black New Yorkers is at its lowest point in half a decade. This marks the first time since 2019 that the Black unemployment rate in New York City has been below 8 percent. And between January 1, 2022, and April 1, 2024, the Black unemployment rate in the five boroughs decreased from 10.7 percent to 7.9 percent — a 26 percent decrease. While our work is never done, our city is making real progress in delivering economic equity.

TO VIEW HYPERLINK for - unemployment rate for Black New Yorkers is at its lowest point in half a decade - COPY & PASTE - https://edc.nyc/sites/default/files/2024-04/NYCEDC-NYC-Economic-Snapshot-April-2024.pdf

This Juneteenth, I call on all New Yorkers to learn about and honor our city and nation’s inspiring and troubled past and continue to build on the progress we have made. Let us celebrate American ideals, American freedoms, and American potential, together. And let us start right here, in the most diverse city on the globe, a place where those from all walks of life live side by side, proud to call themselves by one name: New Yorkers.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
June 16, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Last Week of the Legislative Session - Take Action!

As you may know, the 2024 State Legislative Session is coming to a close in New York. That means, the State Assembly and State Senate have until this Thursday, June 6th, to pass any legislation on to the Governor's desk.

Now is the time to take action and tell your legislators that you want them to take environmental action!

At NYLCV, we have a long list of environmental priorities we would like to see passed into law, but we believe that with enough advocacy from our members like you, we can guarantee that the The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act is passed.

The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act: 

• aims to reduce waste and put consumers first by shifting the responsibility of reducing waste and increasing recycling to large producers

• requiring producing companies to not only reduce the amount of packaging they use, but also to invest in recycling infrastructure

Take Action to Reduce Packaging Waste Product packaging and paper products (PPP) waste has grown dramatically in volume with the rise of e-commerce. Municipal governments and taxpayers are responsible for recycling this waste, and the cost of doing so has increased in recent years due to changes in the global recycling market.

The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would shift the burden of recycling products back to the producer, similar to product stewardship programs that are already in use in New York for electronic waste, paint, pharmaceutical drugs, and carpets.

Successful waste reduction programs create financial incentives for producers to minimize the amount of waste they produce in the first place and use more readily recyclable materials in production.

The bill would also incentivize the reduction of packaging by producers by 30% over the next 12 years. This would improve New York’s recycling rate, divert materials from landfills, and ease financial burdens on municipal recycling programs.

Thank you for your support, we will keep you updated on the status of this important piece of environmental legislation.

Sincerely,

Patrick McClellan
Policy Director, NYLCV
June 4, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

NYC Summer Safety: Enjoy NYC More This Summer Thanks to Additional Lifeguards and New Cooling Centers

Last weekend, we unofficially kicked off the summer in New York City during Memorial Day weekend. Our beaches are open for the season, and our public pools will open June 27. New York City has so much to see and do that people forget that this is a beach town, with two of the best beaches in the entire country just a subway ride away!

We want to make sure summer in the city is fun and safe, no matter what the weather conditions. That’s why we are hitting the ground running this season, with good news about lifeguard staffing and expanded plans to protect New Yorkers from extreme heat and other emergencies.

Let’s start with lifeguards. As many New Yorkers are aware, there is a national lifeguard shortage. It’s not just an issue in the greatest city in the world. But lifeguard shortages mean fewer places to swim. That’s why the city has been working to change some of the rules in the contract with the union representing city lifeguards to allow us to hire more New Yorkers to keep more of our beaches open longer.

Last week, we announced commonsense changes that will modernize our lifeguard requirements and align them with state regulations and industry standards. It will allow us to hire more fully qualified lifeguards, keep our beaches and pools open, and improve overall safety for our swimmers, especially our children and young people.

Remember: Swimming and bathing are allowed ONLY when a lifeguard is on duty. Lifeguards are on duty 7 days a week, from 10:00 AM until 6:00 PM through September 8. They are looking out for your safety, but everyone needs to do their part. Be aware of surf conditions, especially riptide warnings, which can sweep even experienced swimmers out to sea with little warning.

While a perfect day at the beach is one of the best things about summer, extreme heat can be dangerous and even deadly.

Summers are different than they used to be. With climate change leading to more frequent and intense heat, a heat wave can be more than just uncomfortable — it can be dangerous or even life threatening. That is why New York City is getting ready in advance — and we want all New Yorkers to be ready, too.

Having a working air conditioner or a fan in your home is one of the most effective ways to guard against heat emergencies. If you need help purchasing an air conditioner or fan, you may be able to get help from the Home Energy Assistance Program. Dial 311 or visit nyc.gov/311 for more information and to learn about eligibility.

Editor's Note.  Links which may be copy & pasted into your browser are listed at the end of the Mayor's OpEd.

Our city has also expanded the number of cooling centers available this year, and our new “Cool Options” map will now be available 24/7 online, starting this week. This map will show a broad variety of cooling center options available in our city. These include many of our public libraries, older adult centers, and museums, in addition to official New York City Cooling centers.

It’s not too early to plan for an extreme heat event. Just like you locate the emergency exit on an airplane ahead of time, it’s a good idea to locate a nearby cooling option before you need it. Make sure your family, friends, and neighbors have cooling plans, too — especially those who are vulnerable to extreme heat, including older folks, families with young children, and people who need to bring their pets with them. While service animals are welcome at all centers, there are also designated pet-friendly cooling centers in every borough, so plan ahead to make sure everyone is safe.

In addition to opening cooling centers citywide, we are also expanding our city’s natural cooling system — our tree canopy. Our Parks Department has planted over 15,000 new trees in 2024, and we are on pace to plant more than 18,000 trees this year — the highest total in eight years.

Prolonged heat is not our only concern. Our city must be prepared for other extreme weather events like hurricanes, flash floods, and wildfire smoke. Last year, we saw how quickly dangerous wildfire smoke could blanket our city, even from fires thousands of miles away.

This year, we have updated our air quality emergency guidelines with new protocols and monitoring. We are doing more outreach to vulnerable populations, and expanding protections for critical services and infrastructure, such as public transportation and hospitals. If there are serious air quality concerns, we can modify school operations and outdoor events, and distribute high-quality masks to the public.

New Yorkers are encouraged to sign up for Notify NYC, the city’s free emergency notification system, which keeps everyone updated about weather, air quality, and other emergency issues. Notify NYC is available in 14 languages, including American Sign Language. Visit nyc.gov/notify to sign up or call 3-1-1. You can also visit airnow.gov for up-to-date information on air quality in your area.

As we saw during Superstorm Sandy, a hurricane heading towards New York City is one of the biggest threats we face, and the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be worse than usual because of near-record warm ocean temperatures, among other factors.

New Yorkers can find out if they live in one of the six hurricane evacuation zones by visiting NYC.gov/knowyourzone or by calling 3-1-1. Make a plan to evacuate by knowing where you will go and how you will get there.

Flash flooding is also a concern for our city. If you live in a below grade, low-lying or low drainage area, make sure you have a plan for extreme flash flooding. As with every other emergency, make sure you are prepared in advance. There are great resources online at nyc.gov/readynewyork.

This administration has made public safety the center of everything we do, and that includes preparing for weather emergencies and protecting people at our pools and beaches. Let’s work together to make the summer of 2024 our safest summer ever.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
June 3, 2024

LINKS

Home Energy Assistance Program
https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02552

nyc.gov/311
same as above

“Cool Options” map will now be available 24/7 online
https://finder-test.nyc.aws.esri-ps.com/coolingcenters

nyc.gov/notify
https://a858-nycnotify.nyc.gov/notifynyc/

airnow.gov
https://www.airnow.gov

NYC.gov/knowyourzone
https://www.nyc.gov/site/em/ready/coastal-storms-hurricanes.page

nyc.gov/readynewyork
https://www.nyc.gov/site/em/ready/ready-new-york.page

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Mayor Adams - Memorial Day

Every year, we are proud to welcome our nation’s sea servicemembers to New York City for Fleet Week, a celebration of the courage and commitment of all those who serve our nation — and those who have given their lives to protect it.

As a patriotic American and proud mayor, I want to extend my personal welcome to each and every servicemember joining us for the longstanding Memorial Day Weekend tradition.

Fleet Week is much more than just the official start of summer in New York. It is our city’s way of saying thank you to members of the Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard for their courage and commitment to serving our nation. It is because of your work and your sacrifices that we are able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of this nation, free to live our lives and uphold our values.

New York City is proud to be the first municipality in the country with a stand-alone agency dedicated to serving veterans and their families. We cannot thank them enough, and for those who have left us, we can never forget.

As a major port city and a symbol of freedom around the globe, New York City will always stand up and salute those who defend our nation and our values. And as a city that was attacked by foreign enemies on 9/11, we bear a special responsibility to honor those who gave their lives in the conflicts that followed. 

That is why we are proud to announce plans to build a new memorial honoring the 99 fallen post-9/11 servicemembers from New York City. The memorial will be built on the waterfront in the Whitestone neighborhood of Queens, the borough home to the largest number of post-9/11 servicemembers who were killed in action. The memorial will honor a new generation of souls who lost their lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who have served our country in these wars.

I often think about servicemembers like my Uncle Joe, who lost his life in Vietnam at the age of 19. He was a patriot, a young man who was willing to serve his country, no matter who was president because he cared about our country. And it breaks my heart when I see a poll that says 52 percent of Americans would not defend this country if it was attacked by foreign enemies.

I want every New Yorker to know:  I'm one of the 48 percenters. And I know that when it comes down to it, New Yorkers would give their all for this city and their fellow New Yorkers. I saw it on 9/11, when strangers rushed to help each other, and I see it now, when people stand together against hate and division.

This Memorial Day, let us remember all the Uncle Joes in our families, the ones that lived their values and served proudly. Let us re-ignite the American spirit in ourselves and each other — and share those values with the next generation. Patriotism is more than just love of country. It is an act of defiant optimism, a commitment to building a more just and equitable future together. 

This is the greatest city in the greatest country in the world, and we should be proud to uphold the values of democracy and freedom. 

Once again, my deepest thanks to all those who serve.

I want every single servicemember here for Fleet Week to enjoy their time with us, and I hope all New Yorkers will join me in welcoming you to our city and saluting your service.

Thank you for all you do for our country, and may God continue to bless New York and the United States of America.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
May 24, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Is a Housing “Shortage” Really the Cause of Unaffordability?

With the recent conditional repeal of the state’s cap on the allowable density of new residential construction in New York City, and the Mayor’s “City of Yes” proposal making its way through the public approval process, it’s an opportune time to look at the arguments behind this ever-growing push to increase the permitted size and amount of new residential development in New York City. Undergirding all of these is the contention that housing prices are up in New York City because we’re not building enough market-rate housing, and that certain parts of the city, like most of Manhattan south of Harlem, aren’t doing their fair share to address New York City’s housing needs. Let’s look at how well these claims line up with the facts.

Some data points often cited include the large increase in New York City’s population, which according to the census rose from 8.175 million in 2010 to 8.804 million in 2020, or a 7.7% increase. Figures from this same period say housing prices in New York City also rose dramatically, and the recent NYC housing vacancy survey shows record low housing vacancy rates in the city. Taken alone, this would seem to present a compelling argument that housing construction in New York City is not keeping up with population growth, leading to insufficient supply and rising prices.

But the complete picture tells a very different story.

We took these same figures and superimposed the rate of housing growth in New York City over the last 60 years with the population growth. Based upon what our city and state leaders, and other advocates for loosening rules to increase the size and density of new housing have been saying, you’d expect to see a higher rate of growth in our city’s population than in its housing supply, resulting in a tighter market and therefore inflated prices.

Source: 2023 NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey and U.S. Census

In fact, as you can see, housing growth has not only kept up with population growth, even during the recent population boomlet of the 2010s, it’s actually exceeded it — particularly in the last three years. It should be noted that according to the census, New York City’s population has decreased by nearly 600,000 people in the last three years — across every borough and every income group — nearly wiping out the entire population gain of the 2010s. But while the population gain was nearly wiped out, the additional housing built during that time period has remained, and more has been added — leaving New York City with its highest ratio of housing units to people in the last sixty-plus years.

And lest one think (as the NYC Department of City Planning claims) the issue is that household sizes in New York City are shrinking, thus requiring more housing units for the same population, think again: according to the city’s own figures, New York City household sizes have remained remarkably steady since 1980, and are actually slightly larger than they were forty years ago.

So if anything, the need for the number of housing units relative to the population of NYC has gone down slightly over the last forty years (each 1,000 people only require 392 units of housing when the average household size is 2.55, as it was in 2020; they required 402 units of housing, or about 2.5% more, when the average household size was 2.49, as it was forty years ago in New York City).

So the cost of housing in New York City seems to have little if anything to do with the amount housing we have relative to our population or number of households. Nevertheless, housing prices have continued to rise in New York City, placing good, affordable homes farther and farther out of reach of more and more New Yorkers.

Why? Well the answer to that question may be complex, but it seems pretty clear it’s not because we’re just not building enough housing, or that housing construction is not keeping up with population growth — in fact, it’s surpassing it. Perhaps it’s because we’re building mostly expensive housing which many New Yorkers can’t afford, and losing existing affordable housing, including the nearly 120,000 units of rent regulated housing lost in NYC in just the three years between 2019 and 2022. Perhaps it’s because we have among the highest housing construction costs in the world. Perhaps housing prices are rising for a multitude of other reasons unrelated to a simple supply vs. demand relationship, which should, according to those who claim this is the cause of our housing woes, have shown prices holding steady in the 2010s and dropping noticeably in the last three years.

Problem is, they haven’t. And more of the same — merely expecting an increase in supply to bring prices down — is unlikely to change that.

Part and parcel of this theory that proponents of increasing housing production put forward is that certain parts of the city aren’t doing enough to provide housing. This is again based on the notion that just having more housing, of any kind, helps bring down prices for everyone — the classic “trickle down” approach to economics.

Let’s just say for the sake of argument that simply building more housing, no matter what kind or how expensive, brings prices down for everyone. It’s worth considering then which parts of the city are in fact providing more, or less, than their fair share of housing for New Yorkers.

The maps below show this quite clearly:

As you can see, multiple Community Boards in Manhattan provide housing units at a density of three or more times the citywide average for all Community Boards, at 40,000 units/sq. mi. and above. Behind them, multiple Community Boards in Manhattan and inner Brooklyn and the Bronx provide housing at two to three times the citywide community board average, typically at 25,000 to 40,000 units/sq. mi., and so on.

Bringing up the rear? Several community boards in the more suburban parts of Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn and even the Bronx, where housing densities can be as low as nearly 90% below the citywide average for community boards, and under 3,000 units/sq. mi.

Looked at another way, if all of New York City were as dense with residents as Community Board 2, Manhattan (Greenwich Village, SoHo, NoHo, Hudson Square, Little Italy), it would house about 20 million people, or about 12 million more than it does now. If it were as dense with residents as Community Board 3, Manhattan (East Village, Lower East Side), it would house nearly 29 million people, or nearly 21 million more than it does now.

None of this is to say that every neighborhood should have the exact same housing density. Each neighborhood is different and contributes to what makes New York special and unique in different ways, and a city of neighborhoods that were all the same density would be mind-numbingly boring. And given the direct evidence that merely increasing housing doesn’t bring down housing prices for everyone, it would be no more affordable than the existing, much more varied city.

But it is worth noting just how densely built up with housing some parts of the city are compared to others, and even compared to the citywide average. The city’s densest community board in terms of housing, Manhattan’s Community Board 6 in East Midtown, is about thirty times as dense as Community Board 2 in central Staten Island, for example, and about five and a half times as dense as the average NYC community board. But it’s often within those parts of the city that are already contributing the most in terms of housing that those seeking to change zoning and land use rules are most obsessed with spurring more development.

This of course merely compares density among New York neighborhoods. A perhaps more telling comparison is just how dense some parts of New York — particularly those areas where policymakers are demanding ever denser and larger construction — are compared to cities around the globe. While we don’t have figures for the number of housing units in cities worldwide (as the above maps show for NYC community boards), we do have population densities for cities around the globe, shown below in comparison to Community Board 2 (Greenwich Village, SoHo, NoHo, Hudson Square, and Little Italy) and Community Board 3 (the East Village and Lower East Side, incl. parts of Chinatown) in Manhattan, the two Community Boards in which Village Preservation works:

As you can see, compared to some of the densest urban environments in the world, our neighborhoods are even more tightly packed with people — and that’s only counting the residents (daily visitors, workers, students, etc., of which there are many in each of these areas, are not included). In fact, Community Board 3 is denser than any of them, and even Community Board 2 is denser than all but India’s Kolkata (Calcutta) and Bangladesh’s Dhaka — and it’s only slightly less tightly packed with residents than those. Other cities that epitomize urban density, such as Tokyo, Mexico City, Lagos, Nigeria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, and Shanghai, all fall well below the density of our neighborhoods — in some cases 60 to 90% below.

And it should be noted that Community Board 2 includes considerable space taken up by non-residential uses, such as educational institutions (NYU, for example), offices (which occupy the majority of land in Hudson Square, SoHo, and NoHo), and industrial/manufacturing space and transportation/utilities, like the massive Pier 40 or the four-block-long UPS facility on Washington Street. Fully 42% of Community Board 2’s land area is dedicated to non-residential uses, attesting to just how dense the residential development here truly is, while Community Board 3 gives over 37% of its land area to non-residential uses — meaning if those offices, manufacturing facilities, educational institutions, and other non-residential spaces were used for housing rather than their existing uses, the density of these neighborhoods would be more than a third greater than they are now — well surpassing, or (in the case of Community Board 3) nearly doubling Kolkata-levels of density.

Community Boards 2 (top) and 3 (bottom), Manhattan land use allocation. Source: NYC Deptartment of City Planning

For those who would like to see even more residential development in these parts of town (in spite of the current undeniably high level of density) and question why so much of the area is given over to non-residential uses, look no further than the same city government and upzoning advocates who decry the current conditions. Hudson Square in Community Board 2 was rezoned in 2013, ostensibly in large part to allow and encourage residential development. And while some such development has taken place there as a result, that rezoning — like so many initiated by the city — didn’t produce the results it was supposed to, with a much higher percentage of office development taking place than the public was told would occur. These false projections were made by the same city government and agencies that want you to believe that just building more housing, no matter how expensive, will bring housing prices down for everyone.

While some residential development has taken place in Hudson Square since the 2013 rezoning, such as 570 Broome Street (l.), it’s only been about half what the city predicted, whereas office development in the neighborhood, like the Disney Headquarters (r.), has been three times the predicted levels.

Look a few blocks east and you’ll see the same phenomenon repeated. The controversial SoHo/NoHo/Chinatown Upzoning adopted by the city in 2021 is yet to produce a single unit of housing, much less the affordable ones promised. Some new housing is ostensibly in the pipeline, including a project of the sort the city said would not be possible under the rezoning — an all-luxury condo project with no affordable units, but in-unit swimming pools for the lucky (and very rich) residents. And other developers have chosen to build the commercial (non-residential) developments the rezoning allows, on sites where the city predicted housing (including affordable housing) would be built, much as we warned was likely to happen.

In the East Village, in 2017 Village Preservation pressed hard for a rezoning of the Third and Fourth Avenue corridors — one of the few areas in the neighborhood that encouraged commercial (i.e. hotel and office) development over residential development. Our rezoning would have reduced the possibilities for commercial development in order to encourage residential uses instead. The city refused, and the same advocates pushing for greater density of residential development in these neighborhoods opposed it as well — more evidence that they’re not actually motivated by a desire to see housing built to bring down prices, but to promote real estate interests and remove as many restrictions on development of any sort as possible.

Five walk ups at 112-120 East 11th Street (l.) containing over a hundred units of housing, incl. many affordable rent-regulated units, were demolished to make way for the Moxy Hotel (r.). The same city agencies decrying a housing shortage refused to rezone this area as we proposed to prevent more of the same, and the same advocates for upzonings to allow larger and denser housing opposed our efforts.

It should be noted that in 2008, Village Preservation was part of a coalition that successfully secured a rezoning of the rest of the East Village which put an end to the proliferation of private university dorms in the neighborhood and encouraged new residential development instead, albeit at a scale contextual with the surrounding neighborhood — anathema to many of these upzoning advocates.

None of this should be taken to mean that we believe that new housing shouldn’t be developed in New York City. In fact, current rules in New York City already allow an additional 1.8 billion square feet of residential development to take place, which is enough to comfortably house 3.6 million additional New Yorkers, at a time when we’re actually losing population. And according to published reports, New York saw a “record-setting” filing of building permits for just shy of 20,000 residential and hotel units in the first quarter of 2024, under the existing rules which the city says aren’t allowing enough housing to be built in New York City.

Which leads one to question why politicians in Albany and City Hall, and advocates who claim to care about housing prices, are so obsessed with changing rules to allow bigger, denser housing than the current rules allow.

There’s clearly a lack of affordable housing in New York City now. So what’s the solution? Well, creating more affordable housing for one, and making sure that existing affordable housing stays affordable and available to those who need it. Some steps have been taken towards the latter by elected officials, but other actions by those same officials undermine it.

The types of upzonings being promoted by policy-makers and advocates give great financial incentives for developers to destroy existing affordable housing and force out current, less-well-off residents. We’ve seen affordable rent regulated apartments in our neighborhoods destroyed to make way for exactly the kind of developments the city has promoted, which not only don’t have any affordable housing, but sometimes have less housing than the smaller, older, and significantly more affordable buildings they destroyed.

14-16 Fifth Avene (l.) contained 20 units of housing, half of them rent-regulated and affordable. The city approved its demolition over our objections to allow construction of a new luxury high-rise more than four times its height but with fewer housing units, none of which are affordable.

Other cities around the world have bought up existing housing stock to turn it into affordable housing. In our own neighborhood, in the past, government agencies came together with non-profits to turn disused industrial buildings like the massive former Bell Telephone Labs into the permanent affordable housing now known as Westbeth, which it remains today. We would welcome such efforts in our neighborhoods, and have lauded and awarded projects turning empty buildings into housing for the formerly homeless. So far, the city has not chosen to go down this path.

TO HELP

Write City officials and community boards urging them to oppose these provisions of the “City of Yes” — CLICK HERE

Learn more about Village Preservation’s campaigns to protect affordability and promote new affordable housing in our neighborhoods here, and prevent the construction of supersized buildings here.

Andrew Berman
Executive Director
Village Preservation
May 15, 2024

Editor's Note. Click here to learn more about the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Community Op-Ed: Yes to Housing in God’s Backyard

When we came into office, we had a clear mission: protect public safety, rebuild our economy as quickly as possible, and make our city more livable for everyday New Yorkers. The key to livability is affordable housing. It is the bedrock on which New Yorkers can build a family, build a life, or simply continue to live in the city they love. But there is currently not enough affordable housing to meet our city’s needs.

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey showed that our city has a vacancy rate of 1.4 percent, the lowest this measurement has been since 1968. The only way to create more rental availability and lower prices is to build more housing.  To build more affordable housing, we must think creatively and bring every partner to the table. No partner has been more willing to answer the call than our faith-based organizations. They have been on the frontline of every crisis — from the COVID-19 pandemic to the asylum seeker crisis. Houses of worships have always opened their doors to those most in need. Now, they want to lend a helping hand in creating critically-needed affordable housing. However, because of outdated and antiquated zoning laws that go back generations, houses of worship have been told ‘no.’ But those days are over.

Our city must stop saying ‘no,’ and instead say ‘yes’: ‘yes’ to housing in God’s backyard.  Under our ‘City of Yes’ plan — the most pro-housing plan in our city’s history — we are using every tool at our disposal to build a little more housing in every neighborhood, including doing away with outdated zoning rules that prevent us from developing the housing we desperately need. This means giving our houses of worship the flexibility to build homes on their campuses, permitting the creation of much-needed three-to-five story buildings on large lots owned by faith-based organizations, and allowing landmarked houses of worship to permit unused land on their sites to be used for development.

These changes to our zoning rules will help faith-based groups generate revenue, add more affordable housing across the five boroughs, and develop new resources and facilities for congregations at a moment when some are struggling to make ends meet. The changes will support both everyday New Yorkers who need affordable homes as well as our communities of faith. This April, our ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ plan will enter public review and the City Council will vote on it by end of the year.

While we are doing everything we can on a city level with our ‘City of Yes’ plan, we also need the state to act. At this moment, state leaders are negotiating a budget deal in Albany. We need their deal to include a new incentive for affordable housing construction and a tax incentive for office to residential conversions. We also need the state to repeal the outdated FAR Cap, which will allow us to add more housing in residential neighborhoods, and to give New York City the power to legalize existing basement apartments so that they can meet health and safety standards. Finally, we need Albany to pass the Faith Based Affordable Housing Act, which says ‘yes’ to building affordable housing on the properties of faith institutions.

This fight is personal for me. I know what feels like to live without the security of housing because I grew up on the edge of homelessness. My siblings and I had to carry trash bags full of clothes to school because we didn’t know where we would sleep the next night. That is no way to live.

And it’s no way to live for countless New Yorkers who want to continue to live in the city they love so much. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that affordable housing was critical to our country’s future, and we know today that it is critical for the future of our city. It was Dr. King who called out discriminatory practices by landlords and realtors that kept Black Americans out of certain neighborhoods. And it was Dr. King who advocated for the Fair Housing Act, the landmark legislation that was finally passed by Congress the week after he was assassinated.

But his life’s work did not end with that bullet. We are continuing to fight for it today so that all New Yorkers can live with the dignity, security, and peace of mind that they deserve.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
March 25, 2024

Editor's Note About the City of Yes Text Amendments

We've begun tracking and researching this legislation which is about 1,200 pages long. After talking with a number of community activists, we're far less sure that this is as good a proposal as the Mayor portrays it to be. But that said, our analysis and reporting on it are not yet done, so we're reserving full judgment at this time. 

Here's a link to our reporting on the City of Yes Text Amendments Part II, which we will be updating weekly [or so] from here on in, until the NYC Council votes on it, which could be as early as April, when they take it up.  Also scroll down to a January 4, 2024 Editorial where we identify Alicia Boyd and MTOPP in Brooklyn, who've done an analysis of the City of Yes Text Amendments Part II proposal of their own. 

For further reading on City of Yes Text Amendments, see MTOPP blog
https://mtopp.org/index.php/2024/01/02/mtopp-answers-questions-on-the-city-of-yes/

MTOPP has an entire section dedicated to the City of Yes
https://mtopp.org/index.php/category/city-of-yes-text-amendments/

Be advised that these are huge zoning law changes which will strip away a lot of local input to the real estate development process, and put the authority and right to do things in the hands of the real estate developers and landowners, who are supporting this legislation, because they stand to make huge profits because of it.

Also note that while the legislation includes a whole lot of incentives to build all housing, including affordable, there are few mandates to build affordable, which seems a huge flaw in the legislation, and calls into question the selling of this legislation as a solution to affordable housing. There are also questions as to what this will do to the NYC property tax base in the long term, because - if property owners switch from commercial real estate to residential - NYC could stand to lose a huge amount of revenue, as commercial real estate brings in higher revenue than residential.

Stay tuned because these zoning law changes will affect everyone, as you will see, in our next report coming next week.

Mike Wood
Publisher
March 26, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Making it Easier for Working-Class New Yorkers to File Their Taxes and Put Money Back Into Their Pockets

New York City was built on the backs of working-class New Yorkers; people like my mother, Dorothy Mae Adams, a single mother who worked multiple jobs to support my five siblings and myself. She sacrificed everything for us, and I know that there are thousands of New Yorkers doing the same today in our city for their families.

Those are the people we have been fighting for since day one of this administration. We’ve been clear that our mission has been to deliver those working-class New Yorkers a city that protects public safety, revitalizes the economy, and is more livable.

We’ve made our city safer, created 270,000 private-sector jobs, set a first-of-its-kind minimum wage for deliveristas, and worked with our brothers and sisters in labor to get them the pay and benefits they deserve.

We have broken affordable housing records — financing the most affordable homes in city history and connecting more New Yorkers to affordable homes than any other year in our city’s history.

We drove down the cost of childcare for working parents, increased public school enrollment, boosted test scores, and revolutionized reading in our classrooms.

Jobs are up, crime is down, and our streets are cleaner, but we know the hustle is still real for so many across our city. That is why we are fighting to put money back into New Yorkers’ pockets — money they have earned and need to support their families.

We know that filing taxes can be overwhelming, so, this tax season, our administration is making it easier for New Yorkers to file.

If your family earns $85,000 or less or you make $59,000 or less as a single filer, you can get your taxes done for free with NYC Free Tax Prep. New Yorkers can file their taxes for free at any one of our NYC Tax Prep locations across the five boroughs or online at  getyourrefund.org/nyc.

Some of these locations also offer tax services for self-employed New Yorkers, including freelance workers, gig workers, and small business owners.

And a number of New York City Health + Hospitals locations are also offering free, in-person and virtual tax prep for eligible New Yorkers. Select sites offer support in Spanish, Chinese, and Bengali, and virtual tax preparation is available in Spanish as well, so New Yorkers from different backgrounds can get their taxes filed for free.

New Yorkers can schedule an appointment at a NYC Free Tax Prep location in advance at nyc.gov/taxprep and must bring identification and proof of income to their appointment. For virtual services, New Yorkers can upload their documents and meet virtually with a tax preparer to review their tax return before submission.

Free tax prep is another simple and straightforward way our administration is making sure working-class New Yorkers get their fair share, and it is the easiest way to get the maximum tax credits and the full refund you deserve.

Putting money back into your pockets is also exactly why our administration went to Albany to secure the first increase in the city’s Earned Income Tax Credit in 20 years — to ensure that New Yorkers get to keep the money that helps them pay for the essentials like bills, rent, and food.

Our administration will continue working every day to ensure working-class New Yorkers can keep their fair share, and this tax season, we’re making it easier than ever to do so.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
February 26, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Getting Every Single Trash Bag Off Our Streets

New Yorkers deserve clean streets, free of smelly trash bags and rats. That’s why we are taking the next leap forward in the Trash Revolution — our initiative to reimagine trash collection and remove every single trash bag from New York City’s streets.

When we came into office two years ago, we had a mission: Protect public safety, revitalize the economy, and make this city more livable for hardworking New Yorkers.

Our Trash Revolution is a key part of this mission, giving New Yorkers the world-class sanitation services they deserve. New Yorkers shouldn’t have to hold their noses or dodge trash mountains as they walk home.

Our administration is rejecting that status quo, and is delivering for everyday New Yorkers. We are making our streets cleaner by picking up trash more efficiently and cracking down on illegal dumping across the city.

But we are just getting started. Last week, we unveiled the prototype of a new kind of garbage truck that uses a mechanical arm to empty trash from new, on-street containers, like those you might see in European or Asian cities. This will allow us to pick up New Yorkers’ trash quicker, cleaner, and smarter — and we developed this truck in a fifth of the time experts said it would take.

We also announced the next stage of containerization: a full-scale pilot in Harlem’s Community Board 9, expanding from our initial 10-block pilot. This will be the first neighborhood in the city with zero black bags sitting on the street waiting for pickup. Rat sightings in those 10 blocks fell by more than two-thirds year-over-year. That represents real progress, real fast.

The strategies we are testing in Harlem will make a huge difference in some of our biggest and densest neighborhoods, helping us tackle mountains of black bags at the source.

Since our administration came into office, we have been making history in the fight for cleaner streets. We established later set out times for trash, and we are providing the highest level of street litter basket service ever for 23,000 baskets across our city.

By this fall, every single New Yorker in all five boroughs will have access to free, pain-free weekly curbside compost collection.

We are cracking down on illegal dumping and stepping up enforcement efforts. In fact, over the past fiscal year, we issued 24 percent more violations than the year prior.

We have containerized trash for restaurants, delis, bodegas, bars, and grocery stores. And, as of March 1, 2024, all businesses in New York City will have to put out their trash in containers. By this fall, all buildings with one to nine residential units will need to containerize their trash as well.

Here in America, New York City is leading the way, as we use proven solutions that have been adopted in cities all over the world. Add it all up, and we will already have 70 percent of New York City’s black bags off our streets by this fall. This is the most significant progress toward clean streets that New Yorkers have seen in generations.

No one thought this would be possible, but we are getting it done. As a result, New York City, which used to be known for its mean streets, will now be known for our clean streets.

Rats are moving on and moving out. And our city is becoming more livable than ever for everyday New Yorkers.

Mayor Eric Adams
City Hall
February 5, 2024

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Key Considerations Ahead of New York State's Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget

Budget Growth

• The total budget for fiscal year 2024 is $229 billion, including $123.8 billion in state funds — reflecting no growth in state spending over fiscal year 2023's $123.8 billion in state funds, or a

3% decrease after adjusting for inflation.

• Despite spending growth during the Covid pandemic, the State budget has shrunk by nearly 10% in relation to the state economy as a whole over the last 15 years due to a decade of constrained spending (as measured in relation to personal income, the state’s most important tax base).

Budget Gaps

• Future year budget gaps are routinely projected and often disappear.
• Because of conservative forecasting, in typical years, enacted budget financial plan gaps projected for the first outyear are generally 2 – 6% of general fund spending.
• The current $4.3 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2025 is within the routine range and will likely resolve without significant policy intervention.
• Routine gaps like the current FY25 gap (4.1% of general fund spending) typically reflect conservative revenue projections rather than a significant revenue shortfall.
• Budget gaps of this size have historically resolved without significant policy intervention.
• Expiring tax rates will drive a larger budget gap in fiscal year 2028.
• The fiscal year 2028 budget gap will reflect approximately $2.4 billion lost from the expiration of the top Personal Income Tax and Corporate Tax rates.
• The State can ensure future fiscal stability by making these tax rates permanent.

Economic Outlook

• New York’s economy continues its recovery from the Covid recession; however, inequality and poverty continue to rise.
• Stable tax receipts recently drove a 50% reduction of the projected budget gap for fiscal year 2025.
• The poverty rate rose to 14% in the last three years.
• The average income of the top 1% of earners in New York State is approximately $2.6 million in annual earnings, compared to just over $49,000 for the bottom 90%.

Expenditures

• The State remains on a trajectory of modest overall spending growth.
• State spending in fiscal year 2024 is $123.8 billion — on par with the level it would have been had Covid not occurred and had the budget continued to grow at an inflation-adjusted rate of 0.8% per year.

Revenue

• While fiscal year 2024 revenues will likely fall below fiscal year 2023 levels, this decline does not reflect an economic downturn, but rather a step down from last year’s capital gains-driven, above-trend revenue.
• State revenue has returned to an ordinary level of growth after a period of Covid-era surpluses.

Population Loss

• New York’s population loss poses a long-term economic challenge.
• New York’s population fell by 102,000 residents over the last year. Since 2020, the population has fallen by 533,200, or 2.7%.
• Working- and middle-class New Yorkers are leading the State’s population loss — reflecting the growing affordability crisis.
• Working- and middle-class New Yorkers are leaving the state at 4x the rate of wealthy New Yorkers.

The Fiscal Policy Institute
New York, NY
January 16, 2024
https://fiscalpolicy.org 

The Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) is an independent, nonpartisan think tank.

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Statement from Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director on Governor Hochul’s FY2025 Proposed Executive Budget

In response to today’s Executive budget announcement presented by Governor Hochul, Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Executive Director Renae Reynolds said:

“The Tri-State Transportation Campaign applauds Governor Hochul’s proposed FY25 Executive Budget for its substantial investment in public transit. This funding is a major win for our region's mobility and environment. However, the budget's commitment to highway expansion projects across the state, like Route 17 in Sullivan and Orange Counties and the Kensington Expressway in Buffalo, is a step backward. More highways mean more cars, more pollution, and more traffic - undoing the good work of our transit investment.

“We urge Governor Hochul to rethink this strategy. Our future depends on sustainable transportation and mobility options, not in paving the way for more cars. Let's invest in solutions that match the urgency of our climate crisis and the needs of our communities. It's time to prioritize transit, not traffic.”

Tri-State Transportation Campaign
New York, NY
January 16, 2024
https://tstc.org

Tri-State Transportation Campaign is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable transportation

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

The Safest Big City in America

Since day one, our administration has been clear about our vision for the five boroughs — creating a city that is safer, more economically viable, and more livable for the 8.3 million hardworking New Yorkers who call the greatest city in the world home. I always say that “public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.” That’s why, since coming into office 24 months ago, we’ve been dedicated to making sure New Yorkers are safer and feel safer.

Two years later, the results are in. Crime has gone down across the city and jobs have gone up. We have recovered all of the nearly 1 million private sector jobs we lost during the pandemic, and New York remains the economic engine of this nation.

When we came into office in January 2022, the city was emerging from the devastating effects of the COVID-19  pandemic, and, in just one week, an 11-month-old baby was shot in the head, police officers were shot night after night, and NYPD Detectives Rivera and Mora were both murdered. The memory of that week will remain with me always.

But, as of December 31, 2023, it’s official: overall crime was down in 2023. Both murders and shootings were down double digits once again in 2023, with murders down 12 percent, and shooting incidents down 25 percent — the highest decrease in shooting incidents in our city since 1995.

These decreases build off of reductions that had already begun under our administration in 2022. And I want to be clear: these aren’t just numbers — these are lives saved, families kept together, and neighborhoods and communities spared from tragedy and trauma.

Shootings were also down in all five boroughs — all across our city — in 2023 as compared to 2022. This means our model of precision policing and our 360-degree approach to tackling crime have been working. Our administration continues to support our officers and find upstream solutions to uplift the most vulnerable in all our communities.

Additionally, transit crime declined in 2023, and we have made almost 2,000 arrests related to auto theft — the highest number in 20 years. And in the last two years, we removed more than 13,500 illegal guns from our streets.

We know that traffic violence is also violence, and so we cracked down on illegal scooters and mopeds, seizing more than 12,500 illegal mopeds and scooters in 2023 — this was a 74 percent increase over 2022, and the highest number of mopeds and scooters confiscated in New York City history.

All these measures taken together, along with our efforts to continue the fight against illegal and “ghost” guns, have laid the foundation for our economic recovery. And, in just two years, more than 285,000 jobs have been created under our administration.

Thanks to the hard work of NYPD Commissioner Caban, the brave men and women of the NYPD, Deputy Mayor Banks and his public safety team, and the other commissioners and agencies that have worked hand-in-hand on our public safety efforts, New York City remains the safest big city in this country.

And we are going to make sure it remains that way by working hard for New Yorkers each and every day of 2024, and in the years to come.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
January 8, 2024

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Keeping Nightlife Safe in New York City

New York City is the city that never sleeps. We are a 24-hour city that is the nightlife capital of the world. And we remain the safest big city in America. When I came into office two years ago, we had a mission: Protect public safety, revitalize the economy, and make this city more livable for hardworking New Yorkers.

Our bars, restaurants, music venues, and nightclubs employ workers across the city and are home to every level of our live performance industry. But across the five boroughs, local residents often deal with noise, trash, and crime from nightlife. Complaints can lead to unannounced inspections that shutter nightlife businesses, sometimes  permanently.

Just because our nightlife establishments throw a great party, residents and businesses should not be stuck with a hangover the next day. We want to protect public safety, while keeping our nightlife businesses open.

So, last week, I joined the owners of the nightlife venue, Paragon in Brooklyn, to announce a new public safety program to keep our nightlife venues safe. CURE, or Coordinating a United Resolution with Establishments, brings together the NYPD, Small Business Services, and the Office of Nightlife to improve public safety responses to nightlife establishments and better engage business owners by focusing on compliance and education, not punitive enforcement.

Previously, nightlife establishments had faced unannounced, late night, multi-agency inspections, through a program created in the 90s called MARCH. We heard directly from the nightlife industry that this program wasn’t working. We listened to our business owners and residents, and together with multiple agencies, we went work to make sure we were improving safety while keeping nightlife venues open.

CURE creates direct lines of communication between the Office of Nightlife and local establishments and gives businesses a chance to correct issues before enforcement takes place. No more demonizing nightlife in our city. When a noise complaint or trash complaint about a venue comes in, we will work with businesses to resolve the issues, so residents can have peace of mind and quiet and businesses can keep their doors open. CURE is how we protect public safety, cut red tape, ensure better quality of life, and keep business doors open.

And it is all part of our efforts to drive down crime while supporting our local economy and making our city more livable. This year, jobs are up, and crime is down, our streets are cleaner, and we remain the safest big city in America. 

We are going to continue to roll out programs that make living in this city easier for residents and business owners — programs that make our neighborhoods quieter, keep our streets clean, support small businesses, and reduce crime. And we are creating a better-quality of life for everyone who lives, rests, and plays in our city.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
January 2, 2024

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A Year of Getting Stuff Done for working-class New Yorkers

When we came into office in January 2022, New York City was on the brink. The pandemic was still raging. Our economy was in bad shape. Crime was on the rise. And our mission from day one was to fight for the people who make New York City the greatest city in the world.

We went to work to build back our economy and begin the long road to recovery. And we did this by focusing on public safety, investing in public spaces, and supporting working people.

Twenty-four months later, thanks to the efforts of our city, our people, and across city government, we have turned things around.

Jobs are up, crime is down, our streets are cleaner, and every day we are delivering for working New Yorkers.

Thanks to our efforts, 2023 saw overall crime go down, with a drop in five of the seven major crime categories. We have taken more than 6,200 illegal guns off our streets this year, and more than 13,000 illegal guns since the start of the administration. Additionally, we have pumped the brakes on auto theft and have taken on retail theft head on.

As we have brought crime down, we have made our economy stronger. In 2023, we regained all of the private sector jobs we lost during the pandemic — more than a year ahead of predictions — and we have created good paying jobs for working people. Over 282,000 private sector jobs and more than 44,000 businesses have been created since the start of our administration — with one in seven New York City businesses opening this year alone.

But we know more can and must be done for working families. Raising a family in this city can be hard. That is why we are helping more people find affordable child care. When we came into office, a family earning $55,000 a year was paying $55 a week for child care. Today, they’re paying just $4.80.

We are also investing in our young people at every stage of their education. This year, we launched “New York City Reads,” a historic curriculum shift, enabling our public schools to switch to a reading curriculum based on proven science-of-reading techniques. And the numbers speak for themselves. Combined with initiatives we put in place during year one of the administration, reading numbers increased by almost 3 percent and math scores improved by almost 14 percent compared to the same period last year.

While education is key to economic opportunity, so is housing. And we are delivering more affordable housing for all New Yorkers. Our historic “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” plan is focused on “building a little more housing in every neighborhood.” Over the last year, we created nearly 27,000 affordable homes, broke ground on the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years at Willets Points in Queens and helped amplify the voices of our public housing residents with the historic vote for the NYCHA Trust.

Now, we know that a safe and prosperous New York City is also a clean city. And we are winning our war on rats. Today, we receive fewer rat complaints, garbage sits out on the street for less time, and all of our commercial waste is now placed in containers. New Yorkers no longer have to dodge black garbage bags on their way to work or school.

We are also removing longstanding and unsightly sidewalk sheds from our streets while returning sidewalk space to New Yorkers. And we have created new public spaces across all five boroughs and strengthened street safety by daylighting streets and creating more protected bike lanes.

While we have achieved so much this year, we know our city still faces challenges. We continue to meet the national asylum seeker crisis with compassion. Our city has helped the more than 157,000 migrants who have arrived at our doors seeking shelter. This is a city built by immigrants and we are focused on resettlement and helping people take the next steps in their journeys. But we have been very clear that in order to continue to manage this crisis going forward, we need more support from the state and federal governments.

Our city is safer, cleaner, and more prosperous than it was two years ago. As 2023 draws to a close, there is much to be optimistic about. In 2024, we are going to build on our historic wins and continue to Get Stuff Done so all New Yorkers can share in our prosperity. Happy Holidays!

Mayor Adams
City Hall
December 22, 2023

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

MTA Ignores QueensLink Communities in 20yr Needs Report

In the 2025-2044 20 Year Needs Assessment, the MTA has denied transit equity for south-east Queens communities. This shocking announcement comes on the heels of QueensLink's City Hall Rally, where elected representatives and supporting community organizations from across the political spectrum stood in support of QueensLink’s Rails & Trails vision.

Since the last LIRR train traversed the Rockaway Beach Branch in 1962, numerous community groups have advocated for adaptive reuse of this neighborhood treasure. With QueensLink's visionary Rails & Trails concept, the borough finally has a consensus plan to turn this 3.5 mile abandoned line into both transit and public space. The organization’s sheer breadth of political support only serves to underline its unanimity, yet today, the MTA ignored the decades of arduous community activism of Queens residents by rejecting the Rockaway Beach Branch from the next Capital Construction Program.

 In response to the recent report, QueensLink’s Executive Director, Rick Horan, announced that “once again, the MTA has broken their promise with regards to the Rockaway Beach Branch.” Mere weeks ago, the MTA assured the public that the agency would not let a competing park plan preclude transit reactivation on the right of way. “As we can clearly tell from today’s report, the MTA has never been interested in listening to the local communities and representatives who want transit on the Rockaway Beach Branch. We’ve always been skeptical of the city’s promises because they never added up. Today, that skepticism has turned into grave confirmation.” said Mr. Horan.

The MTA’s 20 Year Needs Assessment is a report that evaluates long term investments in public transportation for the metropolitan region in preparation for its next five-year Capital Program. The report includes reviewing required maintenance, enhancements to the existing system and ensuring a state of good repair. This assessment also comparatively evaluates potential expansions of New York’s transit network. In order to provide a public and transparent look at investment priorities within the agency, the 20 Year Needs Assessment is released every five years in conjunction with MTA Capital Programs. The last Needs Assessment was released ten years ago in 2013, prior to the 2015-2019 Capital Program. The MTA did not release its Needs Assessment for the current 2020-2024 Capital Program.

As a means of evaluating the different capital program possibilities, the MTA identified five key principles that represent the region’s current needs. QueensLink believes that the Rails & Trails plan not only thoroughly satisfies these principles, but also exceeds the region’s mobility goals. By creating the first North-South subway corridor through Queens, QueensLink’s vision both strengthens overall network resiliency and serves changing commuting patterns in the post- COVID era. Instead of traveling to Manhattan every day, residents now find that utilizing crosstown connections are much more valuable to their day-to-day needs. Work-from-home is reorienting the arteries of New York, making it imperative to build out a modern transportation network that better serves these inter-borough and intra-borough journeys.

 By ignoring QueensLink, the city also loses out on substantial economic growth that such a vital link could bring. The Rockaways have gained new affordable housing units at an unprecedented rate, and the Aqueduct Racetrack site stands to unlock 110 acres of land for development.

 Neighborhoods around the Rockaway Beach Branch continue to gain population, which presents a considerable strain on the area’s existing transportation infrastructure. QueensLink would help better serve these existing developments and set the stage for bigger economic investments to come.

Equity remains at the center of recent efforts to bring better access to all New Yorkers, making QueensLink a strategic project for future infrastructure investment. Not only will this rails & trails plan help connect communities of color, but it will also create over 150,000 more jobs and 47,000+ daily riders. South Queens has faced historic disinvestment, and new transit connections would help reverse this glaring societal inequity.

In the recent 20 Year Needs Assessment, the MTA also claims that there will only be a timessaving of 4 min per person, which is a highly questionable claim when travel times for South Queens residents remain some of the highest in the nation. An independent report contradicts the MTA’s findings, asserting that QueensLink would save riders about 30 minutes for a round trip.

Although the 20 Year Needs Assessment holds substantial weight with the MTA, it remains a guide, not an official policy. Despite the MTA’s rejection of these vital community benefits, QueensLink will continue to advocate for transit equity by fighting for the reactivation of the Rockaway Beach Branch. The organization has several upcoming community events, including a Rego Park Town Hall on October 12th, where residents will continue to be able to share their thoughts. Mr. Horan noted that “We can’t let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity go to waste. Our rails and trails plan stands to help so many New Yorkers, and our coalition of support strongly believes in this potential. We’re not backing down.”

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

The Future of Housing in NYC

Our administration recently proposed the most ambitious pro-housing zoning changes in the history of New York City — changes that would rewrite the wrongs of the past and clear the way toward building the kinds of housing New York City so desperately needs.

The 1961 Zoning Resolution drastically changed the way our city would build housing and office space for over six decades, restricting the kinds of housing that could be built in certain neighborhoods, and effectively deciding who was allowed to live where.

We can never lose sight of the fact that many of those who pushed for the 1961 Zoning Code aimed to promote racial segregation.

In addition to that injustice, the 1961 code prioritized highways and cars over housing and mass transit, and limited growth rather than encouraging it.

 These restrictive and increasingly complicated zoning rules are ultimately what got us to where we are today: a city that has failed to create enough housing for New Yorkers.

Our plan will end this longstanding history of injustice and allow us to build a little more housing in every neighborhood. The zoning updates we are proposing will help build the new housing so many New Yorkers want: modern apartment buildings, beautiful brownstones, and affordable condos — all in mixed-use neighborhoods with multiple transit options.

Our proposal will incentivize affordable housing, build more housing near transit hubs, convert unused office space into apartments, and allow homeowners to build so-called “granny flats” on their property. We are also proposing that campuses, including houses of worship and other faith-based institutions, be allowed to develop housing on their existing properties — effectively saying, “Yes in God’s backyard.” And finally, we are determined to prioritize people over parking by lifting parking mandates for new developments, a major shift that will bring down costs of new housing all over the five boroughs. Under this proposal, while people will still be allowed to add parking, no one will be forced to build parking they don’t want.

This plan aims to boost housing supply by 100,000 homes in neighborhoods across the city over the next 15 years — supporting a quarter of a million New Yorkers — while simultaneously creating 250,000 family-sustaining jobs. It will help us get the housing we need for working people, growing families, new arrivals, young people just starting out, and older folks looking to age in place.

Half of all New Yorkers today are rent burdened, which means that they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. In some communities, that number is even higher. Too many New Yorkers struggle with rent, and far too many New Yorkers are at risk of poverty and homelessness.

 Our administration has already done important things to combat the housing crisis, including increasing the number of affordable homes, producing the most new supportive homes and homes for formerly homeless New Yorkers, and connecting more New Yorkers to permanent homes with CityFHEPS housing vouchers than ever in the program’s history.

 But increasing supply is the surest path to bringing down rents and giving New Yorkers a break from the constant pressure of housing costs.

 These are major, transformational changes that have succeeded at providing more affordable, stable housing in other cities, which virtually every housing expert and city planner agree on. In order to make them a reality, these rules will have to be approved by our City Council.

 Department of City Planning has just begun the process to advance this proposal. With public support, these changes could be in effect starting next fall.

We look forward to working with New Yorkers, housing advocates, community leaders, elected officials, and our brothers and sisters in labor unions to help make this a reality.

Because the future of housing is the future of New York City.

If we do this right, decades from now, New Yorkers will see this moment for what it was: a turning point away from exclusionary policies and outdated ideas, and towards a more equitable future.

It will be the moment when we came together and decided to be a ‘City of Yes.’

Mayor Adams
City Hall
October 2, 2023

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Open Letter: Fix Penn Station, Don’t Demolish the Neighborhood!

Dear Governor Hochul, Attorney General Leticia James, Mayor Eric Adams, Borough President Mark Levine, Head of NJ Transit Kevin Corbett and Head of the LIRR Phillip Eng,

2,371 residents of the Penn Station neighborhood live under threat of eviction, many from affordable housing where they’ve lived for decades.

1,296 businesses also await eviction, and iconic New York architecture like the Hotel Pennsylvania, the Gimbel’s Sky Bridge and the 1872 St. John the Baptist Catholic church are slated for demolition.

It’s all due to the Empire State Development Corp’s plan to bulldoze more than 40 buildings and give the land to private developers to create a “Vornado Campus” of supertall office towers.

Every single neighborhood organization in the area has come out in opposition, as have both affected community boards and multiple civic and nonprofit organizations. Public Advocate Williams has come out against it, and 15 New York State Senators.

It’s time to junk this plan.

The financing scheme is vague, risky to taxpayers, and simply unnecessary given the high level of matching support of the Federal government for Penn Station improvements.

The plan doesn’t address the issues behind Penn Station’s dysfunction, and fails to consider cheaper alternatives that would make Penn Station the crowning center of a regional, unified train network.

Please withdraw support for this project and investigate alternatives for a transit plan and a new Penn Station worthy of this City and Region — one that doesn’t evict hard working New Yorkers and destroy the culture and history that draw millions of visitors every year. 

October 2, 2023

Originally Published by The Empire State Coalition - March 23, 2022

Distributed by Human Scale NY - https://www.humanscale.nyc/ and Change.org - https://www.change.org/p/fix-penn-station-don-t-demolish-the-neighborhood

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Save (What's Left of) East River Park / The Esplanade is Under Grave Threat / Take Action

The city plans to cut off our only access to the last half-mile of our beautiful waterfront in October. They intend to erect a tall fence, shrouded in construction netting. They will strip away all nearby trees, shrubs, and greenery. That will close access to the river for the entire length of East River Park for at least three years.

 The river view and breezes along the Northern half mile of esplanade will be blocked by a fence. Other parts of East River Park need to be finished and open before this Northern section is closed. Your voice can stop this ugly, mean-spirited, unhealthy, bad faith plan.

Ask the City what's going on (read on to learn specific, polite ways of saying it) via the East Side Coastal Resiliency overseer, the Department of Design and Construction (DDC). Their inquiry form is here.  https://eastriverparkaction.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=08cd86aace4f65dfd0122e760&id=82744df5d8&e=34a2059615

Contact your City and State legislators: Let them know that the current plan for closing the entire promenade East River Park is utterly unacceptable. You can find a list of their email addresses here.   https://eastriverparkaction.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=08cd86aace4f65dfd0122e760&id=9efa1c82ac&e=34a2059615

• "Demand alternative solutions: Insist that other parts of East River Park are opened before the destruction of this northern section begins. This was the original plan. We cannot let this precious green space be amputated bit by bit.

• "Hold them accountable: Challenge the bad faith of the Department ofDesign and Construction and our elected officials.  Demand transparency and accountability.

Below is more information to help you make your case to our elected officials and the DDC:

In place of the current half-mile of open promenade, a meager eight-foot-wide path will be built, barely half the width of the current esplanade. Bikers and walkers will be crammed together. Park users will face constant noise and dust from both the riverside esplanade demolition and the construction road (where they have already cut dozens of trees) along the FDR.

According to the DDC and our elected officials, 42 percent of East River Park is to remain open and accessible throughout the entire course of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (sic) (ESCR) project. As new parts of the park are opened more of the existing park would be destroyed and rebuilt.

They may be adhering to the agreement to keep 42 percent open, but the way they are doing it–closing off all access to the waterfront and leaving remaining park space completely surrounded by heavy construction–is contemptuous, cynical, unjust and immoral.

As school starts today, local sports teams and youth groups are using the north end of the park hourly on weekdays. Adult groups are using it fully each weekend. The proposal to close and destroy the esplanade and surrounding areas in the North end BEFORE the South end of the park is completed and open for use will severely impact healthful park usage for our local schoolchildren and families.

AND: Support greening initiatives: Take part in the Department of Transportation's Waterfront Access Study. Your comments can contribute to a greener neighborhood as we endure the disruptions caused by this construction project, which is projected to continue until 2026. You can fill out the survey here.

Thank you for taking a stand and making a difference in our community.

Jon Lefkowitz
East River Park Action
September 7, 2023

Queens Op Eds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Outdoor dining is here to stay in New York City

This past week we made it official: outdoor dining is here to stay. New Yorkers were hungry for an outdoor dining program that was cleaner, safer, and healthier. And by signing a new bill to bring al fresco dining to all five boroughs, we’ve delivered for them.

Our new outdoor dining program, “Dining Out NYC,” will be the largest outdoor dining program in the nation and will shape New York City’s streets going forward. It’s going to help our small businesses thrive, get visitors and residents alike to spend money in our  neighborhoods, and support good jobs for working-class New Yorkers.

Before the pandemic, outdoor dining was largely limited to Manhattan — and only allowed on the sidewalks. On top of that, the city charged thousands of dollars in fees to restaurant  owners, many of them small business owners. When the pandemic started, outdoor dining was temporarily expanded to every borough in the city and included the use of roadway space.

The expansion was a resounding success. Outdoor dining kept our worldfamous restaurants alive through the pandemic, and, without  question, helped save 100,000 jobs while keeping our neighborhoods vibrant. With Dining Out NYC, we are building on the best of outdoor dining and throwing the worst in the trash. Now New Yorkers won’t have to leave the city for great outdoor dining; they will be able to enjoy all that New York City’s restaurants have to offer, all outdoors in the fresh air.

And I want New Yorkers to know: we heard your concerns about outdoor dining. Abandoned dining sheds attracted rats and detracted from the beauty of our city. That’s why in the last year, we removed over 430 abandoned and egregious sheds — I even took a sledgehammer to help dismantle one. Dining Out NYC will have specific cleanliness guidelines and allow roadway dining during the eight warmest months of the year, which will allow us to keep our streets cleaner, fight rats, and keep getting rid of abandoned sheds when setups come down in the winter.

This is how we get outdoor dining done right. This is how we create jobs for working-class New Yorkers. And this is how we stand with our small businesses. Our administration is committed to working with every restaurant to give them the support they need to take advantage of this program.

Just like it takes a team in the kitchen working together to make a great meal, historic change takes all of us working together. I want to thank all the restaurant owners, workers, diners, and communities who made this program possible.

I look forward to dining out with you on a New York City street soon. Bon appétit!

Mayor Adams
City Hall
August 20, 2023

Queens OpEds & Opinions - QNS NYC

How We Make New York City Safer

As mayor, it is my sacred duty to keep New Yorkers safe. I campaigned on making New York City a safer place to live, work, and raise a family, and now, after a little over a year and a half in office, we continue to see the results.  Shootings are down an incredible 27% through the first 7-months of this year, and, so far this year, we have removed almost 4,000 illegal guns from our streets. Murder, robberies, and burglaries are all down, it is safer to ride on the subway, and hate crimes have declined.

This is the result of intervention–targeted, precision policing, but also a prevention-based approach to tackle the root causes of crime. The loss of even a single life due to violence is a tragedy. So, while we can all acknowledge the progress made, we must also keep working proactively in order to remain the safest big city in America.

That is where our recently released Blueprint for Community Safety comes in. The blueprint — developed by our Gun Violence Prevention Task Force with support from Governor Kathy Hochul — is a $485 million-dollar plan that will double down on our public safety efforts. It will take a 360-degree, holistic approach to further reduce gun violence by investing in our most impacted communities, supporting our young people, and mobilizing every level of city government to make prevention-based approaches to public safety their top priority.

Ending gun violence requires more than enforcement. It requires attention and investment, and the blueprint is built on a community development approach that focuses on preventive measures and long-term strategies. 

We sought to answer a key question: How can we stop the violence before it happens on our streets? With the help of community members, our task force landed on seven key strategies. These include: trauma-informed care, housing, employment, benefits access, improving the relationship between the police and the community, community vitality, and early interventions to protect our youth.

Those investments are going towards programs with a proven-success rate, such as $22.5 million towards the “Work, Learn, Grow” program that offers year-round employment opportunities, and $6.6 million for job training for out of school and out of work youth.

We are also addressing the need for quality affordable housing, career training, and are involving violence interrupters, who can defuse violence before it starts.

We are starting our efforts by targeting six police precincts in the Bronx and Brooklyn, neighborhoods where we have seen the highest rates of gun violence, and we will expand to other neighborhoods over time. Bringing down crime and gun violence doesn’t happen overnight. It takes precision policing combined with prevention-based strategies that look at the different causes of violence and take steps to address them.

Our men and women in uniform are tireless in their efforts to make New York City a better place to live and work. Our many agencies, social workers, and violence interrupters help defuse tensions and create opportunities for New Yorkers to live meaningful lives outside the web of violence. The numbers confirm that we are making great progress. But the work of public safety never finishes, and we must dam up every river that leads to the sea of violence. With this plan, we can create a stronger, safer, more livable city for all.

Mayor Adams
City Hall
August 7, 2023

Queens OpEds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Too many drownings already...pls share widely!

Greetings All!

Our beaches are open and we want everyone to be safe while enjoying them! Pls share this with your families along with our PSA Here. https://twitter.com /SwimStrongNYswimstrong-2015-infrographic.png

Beach Forecasts and Text Alerts

The daily beach forecast by the National Weather Service (NWS), located at https://www.weather.gov/beach/okx , includes rip current risk levels and information about other hazards at the beach. Sign up for text alerts for beach conditions by texting “Beach” or “Playa” to 877877. To check on beach water quality go to: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/beach-homepage.page 

Rip Currents

Rip currents are narrow channels of fast moving water that pull bathers away from the shore. They move at speeds of up to 8 feet per second, faster than any Olympic swimmer and can easily overpower a person. Panicked swimmers often try to “fight” the current by swimming directly back to shore. Drowning due to fatigue is often the result. These are responsible for numerous water rescue attempts along the New York City beaches every year. Rather than struggling through a rip current and exhausting yourself, turn onto your back and float, until you feel the current break, then swim at an angle, away from the current toward the shore. Float don’t fight.

Ocean, Bay and Beach Safety Tips

• "Swimming in the Ocean, Bay or any open water is not the same as swimming in a pool. Open water swimming can be very physically taxing and may exacerbate underlying medical issues in older swimmers.
• "A perfect day on the beach doesn’t mean that it’s a perfect day in the water. If in doubt, don’t go out.
• "Swim only where Lifeguard is present. Even with LG, never swim alone. Swim with a buddy. Have dedicated adult supervision for all children. Have someone on shore watch you while you swim/surf/wade in the water.
• "Many people drown while trying to save someone else. Know your own limits. Make safe choices.
• "Be aware of additional hazards, such as lightning, high surf, shore break, jelly fish, marine predators, dehydration and sun stroke.
• "Avoid wearing shiny objects that may attract sharks and other fish.
• "Do not mix alcohol/drugs and swimming.
• "Sandbars are formed by waves and tides. They are not permanent structures.
• "Avoid swimming where danger is present: in rough seas; inlets; around groins, piers and surfers; at night; or during thunderstorms.
• "Signs are posted for a reason. Follow the instruction for your safety.

Watch this 3 min video to understand water safety very differently - https://youtu.be/Hy49qY3QN_s

64 schools (GK-12) are using this training now. What are you waiting for? https://www.swimstrongfoundation.org/know-before-you-go/

Stay safe ; stay healthy.

Shawn M. Slevin
(pronouns: she/her)
www.SwimStrongFoundation.org

Queens OpEds & Opinions - QNS NYC

Uber Riders Must Pay Their Fair Share Under Congestion Pricing

The Federal Highway Administration recently signed off on New York City’s first-inthe-nation congestion pricing plan, which means that, with few exceptions, every car and truck entering Manhattan’s Central Business District will be charged a toll. To secure FHWA approval, New York had to add a robust package of measures specifically designed to protect the health and livelihoods of New York’s minority and immigrant communities.

Unfortunately, one element of this package misses the mark: Companies like Uber and Lyft will only have to pay the toll to enter the congestion zone once a day. Uber has made it clear that it intends to spend millions in a campaign to protect this loophole and they will claim concern for the well-being of the drivers, but their goal is to maximize market share and enrich their shareholders, all while continuing to clog our streets and pollute our air.

We have both spent years advocating for congestion pricing and are eager to see it up and running. But if New York is serious about curbing traffic congestion, we must address the excessive use of ride-hail companies. In 2022, over 52 million for-hire vehicle rides started and ended in Manhattan below 60th Street, most of them Uber or Lyft, despite that same area being served by 19 subway lines.

An Uber trip from Tribeca to Midtown is a luxury and should be treated as such. The once-per-day toll on for-hire vehicles will do nothing to reduce traffic and will invariably be charged to the working-class drivers the FHWA and MTA are trying to protect, instead of their more well-off passengers.

The solution is to replace the once-per-day toll with a significant increase to the current $2.75 surcharge on every for-hire trip that begins in or enters Manhattan below 96th street, with the surcharge paid by the passenger, not the driver.

For trips entering the zone the increased surcharge should be half of the peak toll and somewhat more than this for trips that begin and end in the zone, with discounts for both at night.

Yellow cabs should be exempt from the new increase; cab drivers paid as much as $1 million each to the city to obtain medallions, but the value of those once coveted medallions was destroyed by the city's failure to properly manage and regulate the introduction of Uber and Lyft to city streets.

Concerns about worker dislocation should be taken with utmost seriousness during the shift to new policies and technologies, but we should not accept the argument that polluting industries and practices be protected for the sake of preserving jobs and profits. If congestion pricing works and demand for for-hire rides softens, we could, for example, create a fast track for former Uber and Lyft drivers to work for the MTA.

Done right, New York’s congestion pricing program will markedly reduce traffic, improve air quality and street safety, modernize mass transit, and create an overall healthier and more livable city. But to do so in a way that is truly equitable, for-hire companies and their customers must pay their fair share. Only then can we claim to be a model program other U.S. cities should follow.

June 7, 2023
Assemblymember Robert Carroll
Alex Matthiessen

Assemblymember Robert Carroll (D-WF) represents Brooklyn’s 44th Assembly District, which includes the neighborhoods of Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Victorian Flatbush, Borough Park, Ditmas Park, and Midwood

Alex Matthiessen founded Move NY, a campaign which led to the passage of congestion pricing in 2019.

Editor's Note.  Click here to view a fairly good deep dive we did a few years ago, regarding the issue of Congestion Pricing in NYC.  The gist is we're not fans, it favors the rich and penalizes everyone else, and doesn't solve the problem, which would be to build more / better infrastructure that enables folks to get around using public transit.

Queens Op-Eds

Earned Income Tax Credit: You earned it – and NYC will help you get

My mission as Mayor of New York City is to focus on the needs of working people of this city. One of the best ways we can do that is to get money back in your pocket – money you have earned, money you need to support your family.

Last year we went to Albany to get the Earned Income Tax Credit, better known as the EITC, expanded for the first time in 20 years. The EITC is a refundable tax credit provided to working New Yorkers and families. And I am proud to say that together with our state partners we got it done.

Promises made, promises kept.

The enhanced EITC put $350 million dollars in the pockets of hardworking New Yorkers. That means more money for the essentials: food, groceries, bills & rent. It is a lifeline for so many working people and families across New York City. This tax credit has helped 800,000 New Yorkers and this year we want to reach even more.

And last week we launched a $1.5 million television, print, subway, social media and radio marketing campaign on the enhanced EITC to spread the word to New Yorkers.

This tax season, we want to help more working people get the support they need through the Earned Income Tax Credit.

New Yorkers can visit nyc.gov/getcredit to see if they qualify for this cash back.  If you do, you can apply for this credit while filing your taxes. It is that simple. New Yorkers can file their taxes for free at any one of our NYC Tax Prep locations across the five boroughs or online at getyourrefund.org/nyc

The EITC is a simple and straightforward way to make sure working New Yorkers get their fair share.

Under the enhanced EITC a single parent with one child with an income of $14,750 has seen their benefit increase from $187 to $933. And a married couple with two children and an income of $25,000 has seen their New York City benefit increase from $308 to $925 under the city payment.

I come from a working-class background. My mother worked a double shift as a cleaner to support my siblings and me. There are thousands of New Yorkers doing the same today in our city.

We know many New Yorkers are struggling right now. Rent is going up and inflation is driving up the cost of living.  People are worried about whether they can keep a roof over their heads. And due to the pandemic, many have lost wages and childcare.

I know the hustle is real. And I want every hardworking New Yorker to know: We’re looking out for you.

The EITC is one of the most effective support programs in history, helping low-income families and workers get a boost as they climb the ladder of success.

Through the EITC we are putting more money in working peoples' wallets and helping lift some of the burdens they face.  Working New Yorkers deserve their fair share and credit, and we are giving it to them.

Mayor Eric Adams
City Hall
March 6, 2023

Queens Op-Eds / Opinions

On Track to a Safer New York City Subway

I started my career as a transit police officer, so I know firsthand that subway safety is public safety. Our transit system is the key to getting to work, to school, visiting family and friends, and experiencing all that New York City has to offer. It makes life in our city possible. And everyone who uses this essential resource — regardless of their ethnicity, age, or gender — has the right to feel safe doing it.

One year ago, Governor Kathy Hochul and I announced a Subway Safety plan, where we promised to devote more resources to helping those experiencing homelessness and facing mental health crisis get the shelter and the care they need. We announced our plan to disburse more homeless outreach teams in our subways and train NYPD officers to enforce the system’s rules of conduct in a fair and transparent way, addressing the fare evasion and disorder that contributes to an unsafe environment. And we committed to improving collaboration between the state and city to effectively address safety concerns.

And this past fall, Governor Hochul and I took another bold step, announcing a historic surge of police officers to patrol subway platforms and trains. We added roughly 1,200 additional overtime officer shifts each day on the subway, dramatically increasing the police presence across the system.

We now have more police officers available to assist riders. Overall station inspections are up 43% in 2023 so far, compared to the same period in 2022. And we have stopped the cruel practice of just walking by people in need. Since announcing the first phase of our plan last February, we have removed the homeless encampments from our system and successfully connected more than 4,000 people facing homelessness with shelter and the assistance they deserve.

During the pandemic, subway ridership declined, and crime grew. Many riders, particularly women and people of color, sought alternative options, like the nanny who decided to bike to work in Brooklyn because of concerns about anti-Asian hate or the bartender who opted to split a cab with her co-workers because she didn’t feel safe on the system late at night.

It’s clear that our approach to making a safer subway system for these riders is working. As a result of our efforts, major crime in transit stations is down 18% since the beginning of 2023 through February 26th, compared with the same period in 2022. We are seeing the most riders on the system since the pandemic, and they are reporting an increased sense of security. In December, subway ridership topped 3.9 million people in one day, the highest number since the pre-pandemic period. Over 1 billion riders used the system last year. And with more people on the train looking out for each other, our system is feeling safer every day.

I take the subway and I talk to riders, transit officers, and MTA employees. They tell me that the feeling of normalcy is returning, and they encourage me to push forward. I hear them: we must continue to remain vigilant and keep building a safer system for all.

The New York City subway is the symbol of the greatest city on earth. It creates economic opportunities and access, improves traffic congestion, and makes the air better for everyone. Together, we will keep it safe and ensure that New York City remains the safest big city in the nation.

Mayor Eric Adams
City Hall
February 27, 2023