Paul Graziano lives in Flushing, but he had a direct message Monday night for his neighbors in Forest Hills.
“We are the target of City of Yes,” said Graziano, a planning and land use expert, said to a room of more than 200 people at an emergency town hall meeting of the Forest Hills Community and Civic Association. “The intent of City of Yes is to eliminate owner-occupied housing and replace it with rental units ... The aim, essentially, is to allow developers to build whatever they want as of right.”
City of Yes is a three-pronged initiative from the Adams administration which the Mayor’s Office said will reduce carbon emissions, stimulate jobs and businesses and increase the construction of housing.
The carbon portion was approved by the City Council in December.
The reasons for Monday’s emergency meeting, according to civic President Claudia Valentino, were the city’s presentation on the economic development portion to Community Board 6 scheduled for last night, May 8; and a hearing before the City Council on the housing portion on June 4.
Even residents who are not members of the FHCCA turned out in force at the parish hall of Our Lady Of Mercy Church on Kessel Street. A good meeting, Valentino said, normally can draw about 50 people.
“They support City of Yes,” Valentino said of Board 6 leadership. “They rubber-stamped [the carbon emissions portion] without our approval.”
She told Monday’s crowd that they needed an equally strong turnout at Wednesday’s CB 6 meeting.
Valentino dislikes numerous aspects of the economic development and housing plans, pointing out they would allow businesses to open in residential neighborhoods where they cannot now, and could allow massive apartment buildings in single-family home neighborhoods.
“It’s complicated,”she said of the proposals running more than 1,000 pages apiece. “You’re not expected to dig through it ... That’s deliberate.”
She had letters ready for signatures to Councilwoman Lynn Schulman (D-Forest Hills) demanding that all present one- and two-family housing zones must remain in place; that corner stores not be allowed in those same neighborhoods among other things.
Graziano pointed out that most of the community boards in the city, and all but three in Queens, including CB 6, have voiced opposition to City of Yes thus far.
“They never mention that,” he said of the administration. He and Valentino counseled residents to not just accept City of Yes as a fait accompli. Valentino said she heard the same thing 25 years ago when residents and the city told her she could not succeed in downzoning large swaths of residential neighborhoods in Forest Hills.
“They forgot about me,” Valentino said of administration officials. “Unluckily for them, I didn’t die. I know what I’m doing.”
Hundreds of people were in attendance at a City of Yes housing presentation at Cambria Heights Library last Saturday.
Throughout the forum Paul Graziano, an urban planner, said the city is actively trying to destroy single-family zoning through upzoning, to make way for dense multifamily buildings.
Graziano said approximately 50 percent of single-family housing throughout Queens, Staten Island, Southern and Central Brooklyn and Northern and East Bronx would be impacted by the city “eliminating” existing zoning.
According to stats from Graziano, while the Big Apple is the largest big city by population — more than 8.3 million — it has the smallest share of single-family homes — 15 percent — across the country. In comparison, LA, second in terms of population — over 3.8 million — is 75 percent single-family homes. Washington, DC, has a population of 670,050 but double the single-family homes in New York.
Graziano was thankful to Assemblymembers Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), Nily Rozic (D-Fresh Meadows) and Alicia Hyndman (D-Springfield Gardens), along with state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Jamaica), who prevented a state version of the housing plan to get through in 2022. He now wants to raise awareness about Mayor Adams’ housing plans, which he said also would push through transit-oriented development, more mandatory inclusionary housing, town-centered housing units, religious housing and legalized accessory dwelling units.
“The electeds here were some of the hardest fighters in shutting that down,” Graziano said. “They essentially walked out of [budget] negotiations and [Hochul] dropped everything.”
Graziano said Queens folks should leverage the 2025 election to get municipal leaders to say no to City of Yes, Adams’ rezoning plan. Residents, who fought since 2004 to stop overdevelopment in residential communities, approved downzoning plans for the neighborhood and now the city is pushing against the interest of the people.
“This administration has stated publicly that lower-density neighborhoods are the cause of the housing crisis,” said the urban planner. “We have a target on our backs.”
Graziano also called out mainstream news outlets like the Daily News, which said in an April 14 editorial that “those who want to live in a suburb, we’ll remind you there are several in the vicinity of the five boroughs. This is New York City.”
“If you take our communities out of the mix, there is virtually no single-family zoning in the City of New York,” said Graziano. “The transit zone is going to allow apartment buildings all over the place that is cross-hatched [on a map he showed]. This is Rosedale, Laurelton, Springfield Gardens, Addisleigh Park and Queens Village, just a few blocks north of Murdock [Avenue].”
Low-density housing areas or commercial buildings with three to five-stories would be eligible for higher density; more houses will be built by train and subway stations; basement, attic and garage apartments would be legalized; religious institutions would be allowed to dedicate parcels of their land to housing complexes; and much of the proposed developments would come with little to no parking and take up some green spaces under Adams’ plan.
“That [plan] just went to the City Council and they are going to vote on this at the end of the month,” said Graziano, to the crowd, which also included people and civic leaders from St. Albans, Rosedale, Queens Village and Bayside. “There is no affordable housing. [ADUs and TOD would] replace older occupied homes with market-rate rentals ... There is an affordability thing with higher density buildings ... but its [virtually] nothing.”
