Do you know about the "City of Yes" proposals?
Not many do. But this huge package would
- eliminate single-family zoning
- allow rental apartments in garages, basements, and new construction
- remove off-street parking requirement for new buildings, flooding our streets with more cars
- allow smaller lot sizes to cram more buildings into our neighborhood
- allow larger and taller homes
- permit apartment buildings on what are now single-family lots
- allow developers to build without zoning restrictions
- eliminate green space, parking, and our quality of life.
The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity was presented at the Community Board 11 meeting on Monday, June 3, at the Korean Community Services Center at 203-05 32nd Ave, Bayside, NY 11361. THE BOARD'S VOTE WAS A RESOUNDING NO!
(See news coverage of the meeting in the Queens Chronicle)
The "yes" in the City of Yes is yes to overdevelopment, and the Bellcourt Civic Association is adamantly opposed. See our position statement below, and use the email addresses below to send an email to the planners who created this terrible plan and to the city council that must defeat it. Scroll down for suggested wording for your emails.
The Bellcourt Civic Association has joined with other Queens civics to retain Paul Graziano to represent our interests.
EMAIL LIST
Department of City Planning: 24DCP033Y_DL@planning.nyc.gov
Council Member Vickie Paladino: district19@council.nyc.gov
City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams: SpeakerAdams@council.nyc.gov
Click here to send a message to Mayor Eric Adams
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards: info@queensbp.org
We need the ENTIRE CITY COUNCIL to be aware of the strength of the opposition. It is the City Council that will approve or scuttle this plan, so consider emailing the entire council with your letter of opposition. Scroll down for a link that will email the entire council, and a list you can paste into your email TO line if the link doesn't work in your email software.
SUGGESTED WORDING
(personal is always best, but if you're at a loss for words, you can send one of these)
I live in the historic community of Bellcourt, a diverse and beautiful little neighborhood of single-family homes. We appreciate the diversity of housing styles and density levels NYC has to offer, and we are strongly opposed to the elimination of single-family zoning that is a part of the City of Yes. Please do whatever you can to protect our community and save the lovely variety of housing our great city has to offer.
or
I've been reading about the City of Yes housing proposals, and I am strongly opposed to what this would do to my community. Bellcourt, a historic neighborhood in the heart of Bayside, Queens, is an oasis of single-family homes with green space, trees, and an amazing sense of community. Having options is what city planning should be about - and I chose this single-family neighborhood so I could stay in NYC while having a little green space. Please don't treat all New York as if it were all the same neighborhood. New York is a collection of amazing neighborhoods, each with its own appeal. Please let's work together on creating more housing, instead of forcing these terrible proposals onto neighborhoods that will be destroyed in the process.
