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Planning Chief Dan Garodnick Talks Local Resistance to New Housing
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With the fate of a few large residential rezoning proposals in the balance, City Planning Director Dan Garodnick is urging councilmembers—whose support is critical for projects in their districts—to weigh the citywide need for more housing over parochial concerns and rigid affordability rubrics.
Garodnick, a former Manhattan councilmember, said he respects the key role that city legislators play in the land use process but hopes they will take “a broader view” when it comes to rezoning decisions. Several such projects currently on the table—like ongoing plans to change zoning rules and build a new 349-unit housing complex along a stretch of Bruckner Boulevard in Throggs Neck, and a nearly 3,000-apartment mixed-use neighborhood atop an industrial patch of Southeast Astoria—have faced resistance from community members and some lawmakers.
“I think we have to take a step back [and] remember that, in many of these cases, they are not explicitly local issues,” Garodnick said Sunday during an appearance on the WBAI radio program City Watch. “These are issues that affect all New Yorkers and have an impact on our housing supply, and have an impact on job creation and have an impact on construction.”
“If everything…is just a question of ‘Does the local community support or not support it,’ the answer will almost, inevitably, always be ‘no,’ so it can’t just be that, it has to be a broader consideration,” he added.
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45 Stories, 45 Years
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Our inaugural issue, published in 1976, launched in the midst of New York City’s fiscal crisis, and was created to foster “more communication within and among people and organizations in the movement to save and improve housing,” according to a note from the editors at the time. While much has changed since, New York City is still facing many of the same challenges — in affordable housing and a looming fiscal crisis.
Help us build a more equitable city. Make a donation of $200+ by September 30, and you’ll receive our limited-edition book: 45 Stories, 45 Years: City Limits’ History of Covering NYC, offering a collection of historical news and photos of our city coverage since 1976.
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