What many here don’t seem to understand is that a large share of those who oppose the doubling of what the Zoning allows, have been part of Long Island City’s renaissance. We have done more here over the years to gentrify and upgrade the quality of life here than post insults on a blog. We have put time and resources into building new and at the same time trying to preserve the old.

Of course I don’t know but I have a strong hunch that the most vocal proponents of building to whatever size at any cost have done little in reality.

I moved here because people say hello to you on the street.

Loss of one million cubic feet of light and air? Where did it go? So silly, so paranoid, so sad, such a waste…

Art Group Struggles To Find New Home
by Paul Leonard, Assistant Editor
08/14/2008

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, executive director of Queens Council of the Arts, hoped that the second time would be the charm.

For the last five years, the arts group has been trying to find a home closer to the center of the borough’s cultural explosion in Long Island City, with a planned move from their current home near a golf course in Forest Park to 21st Street in L.I.C. falling apart last year because of a zoning dispute.

Last May, with Community Board 2 voting to approve a proposed 13-story CUNY graduate housing center and combined office and gallery space for QCA, Krakauer thought their long search was finally over.

But a little-known community group had a lot to say about the project first.

In a submission to the Board of Standards and Appeals in Manhattan, which will convene a hearing next week on the project, the group, calling itself the Long Island City Community, blasted the arts organization for not being a true “community facility,” worthy of the seven variances already given by the city for the development.

“What’s been offered by this project is a dry bone,” said Doug Otto, a member of LICC, who filed the submission with the BSA. “What we need is an actual community center, not 6,000- square feet of office space.”

Actually, only 5,000 square-feet in the new building will be dedicated to offices for the arts group, not counting a proposed gallery space slated to house installations by artists from the borough.

“A community facility to me means an organization that gives back to the community and has a net positive impact,” Krakauer said.

QCA gave out around $300,000 in grants to artists this year, with 25 percent given to artists based in L.I.C. alone. With the group’s operating budget doubling to $1.3 million since 1993, the group had out-grown its current 811-square-foot office space in a former golf clubhouse in Forest Park — far from art gallerys and performance venues in L.I.C., the borough’s cultural capital.

Still, misinformation and fear about continued development in rapidly-changing L.I.C. threatened to kill the project, which needs BSA approval before breaking ground.

“Their line in the sand has to do with height,” said Karen Fitzgerald, a L.I.C. artist with a studio just north of the proposed site on 5th Street between 47th Avenue and 46th Road. “But everybody has to deal with the fact that L.I.C. is getting some height.”

Fitzgerald, who favored the project, believed that fear drove some in the community to oppose the development.

However, Tom Paino, the leader of LICC and vocal opponent of overdevelopment in the neighborhood, wasn’t going to budge in his opposition to the potential loss of the “nearly one million cubic feet of light and air” if the project went forward.

“It would be great to have even more art going in the neighborhood, but it’s not worth the cost,” he said. Paino planned to testify against the project at next week’s BSA meeting.

But much of LICC’s points of contention about the building seemed small compared to the potential benefits for CUNY, QCA and the greater community.

“The land there is contaminated and it’s right across from a park,” Krakauer said, pointing to the new ball field on a parcel owned by Queens West Development Corp. “If this project goes forward, the site will get cleaned up and the whole neighborhood wins.”

Now one of the main problems with the variance application is that this project requires multiple variances that go across differently zoned areas. And there several additional variance applications to alter how the buildings are constructed because OCA is trying to squeeze out as much rental space as possible.

I’m not passing judgment on that. I am merely pointing out how much change at once is being asked for in the form of a hardship application. From my perspective and humble opinion, this degree of change is more appropriately addressed by a rezoning process - something I am not in principle against.

previous:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/hunterspoint/hp5.shtml

present:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/hunterspoint/hp6_proposedzoning.pdf

Now do you see? Also if you read the text, for the ‘proposed’ which is now the *adopted* zoning, you will see clear explanation of the changes.

I’ll frankly be awed and amazed if you admit your error.

Your other contention that all the development is outside the purple line shows that you don’t walk the streets of Hunters Point so no wonder you have no idea what I am talking about. What I am talking about are the low lying homes that are being surrounded by buildings more than twice their height and several times their bulk. (They take up nearly 3/4 of the backyard space and block light there as well).

While I don’t particularly care for the large ones that are outside the purple line I am not at all talking about them. This is simple: Play by the rules. Build as of right. Or go ahead and try a variance but don’t whimper and moan when people exercise their right to oppose the variance. That’s why it’s called a hearing.

As far as destiny, I never said I control it or should. But who are you to say that destiny means the god given inevitability of luxury high density housing? That’s just not how democracy works. First it’s about people not corporations. Second, if government did not put itself in the way of mob rule and attempt to figure out also what is right, lynchings might still exist in certain areas of the country.

Also it’s not at all accurate to imply that we do not want to share. We have welcomed the newcomers. Unfortunately you all now want to step all over us and like it or not you don’t get a free pass without a fight.

We understand that there is a low lying neighborhood and many of you have no interest in being surrounded on all sides by behemoths. Believe me we understand it all too well. Apparently what your side doesn’t understand or want to understand that you do not have a lock on the destiny of LIC. Like it or not you have to share LIC with the new people moving here and many of us eagerly look forward to developments such as this. Why are your wishes and desires wants and needs more important than ours? Whatever happens to a democracy where the needs of the few take a backseat to the needs of the many?

When people say you can’t fight progress I get the feeling they think that steam rolling the low lying neighborhood is a god given right. When we simply question the density and height beyond what Zoning allows, we are cast as backward, anti-development, living in the past, etc. That’s the agenda I’m questioning. It’s hard not to think these are buzz words from a concerted campaign.

On a similar note , the person who keeps trying to drill away at the sound bite that the zoning hasn’t changed on 5th st in decades, hasn’t addressed the DCP maps and text posted above. A change from 2 story manufacturing to a Zoning that also allows 7 story residential is a major change. Are you saying that it’s wrong for us to ask some questions if the developer wants nearly twice what zoning allows?

We just feel that the focus is too intense and narrow on luxury, density, and height. Somehow modern immature thinking is that it’s gotta be big. Guess it’s all those size enhancement commercials. I can’t understand how you don’t see that there is more to neighborhood life than looming lifeless towers. As for places to get wine, get real. You have a dozen in a six block strip - not to mention 4 or 5 liquor stores fairly close by.

What are we fighting to protect? A polluted vacant lot? Light? Air? Some desparate attempt to hold onto the sense that LIC is a small slice of suburbia? A hollow victory against the developers who have invaded the area? I’m sorry I’m just not seeing it. Perhaps you can explain what you are fighting for and why it is more valuable than everything I mentioned above.

Everyone says that I am for responsible development. Well in certain situations responsible development is no development. If you hold everyone to these lofty standards its quite possible that nothing will get built at all. No shovel gets put in the ground unless there is a profit motivation. Take away the profit nothing gets built.

Don’t try to blame devlopment for the loss of manufacturing jobs in LIC. LIC, much like NYS and the country in general has been losing these jobs en mass to China and India and Mexico. You can’t blame condos for that. Manaufacturing was on the decline in LIC long before the condos arrived.

P.S. No there really is not enough places to get a glass of wine with your food in LIC. sorry to break the news to you.

I thought you had some real points , now i see you are just a boob.

When I called for you to come out of the closet you made a passionate speech for all the great liberties you want - as if someone is preventing these things from happening. Look around you. Do you really not have enough places to get a glass of wine with your food? And by the way, jobs are being lost in this neighborhood at a faster rate than they are being created. If you want me to point you to the stats I will.

You still have not revealed the true motivation for what comes across as an anti-old-neighborhood attitude. What’s that about?

Who is against it anyway…obviously someone with an agenda

Yes we are not as organized as the nahsayers , but we are here (most of us work for a living) .We want this site cleaned up and we welcome the new students and neighbors - Our restuarants and business could use some more customers to survive and thrive - A few added stories to make this project feasable does not threaten us and is fine.

We are in a recession - if they are willing to risk the investment to build it, I say go for it!

What is your agenda aside from being against tall buildings and lamenting over lost views of NYC and lost parking spots? Why don’t you come out of the shadows and admit what you stand for?

This is 100% true and I stand by that statement. What is not true is that there was some concerted effort to save this block from dense development. Only the sliver on 5th was rezone. The rest of the zoning is the same as its been for decades, so quit trying to paint this

what is more important to me (and many others here in LIC) is good design.

Unfortunately in this City the battle is always about the size of a proposed building , but no talk of what is will actually look like (this is true not just in LIC).

I would gladly see a taller bigger building if it is aesthetically attractive and not built cheaply.

“In other areas, the changes in zoning would result in more modest increases in allowable FAR and heights. In particular, an M1-4/R6A zoning district (2.0 FAR for manufacturing and commercial uses, 3.0 FAR for residential uses) is proposed for 5th Street and for the block fronts facing John F. Murray Playground. The allowable FAR for manufacturing and commercial uses would remain at 2.0 resulting in two-story buildings. For residential uses, the modest 1.0 FAR increase in bulk with maximum base heights of 60 feet and maximum building heights of 70 feet would lead to five- to seven-story buildings. This zoning recognizes 5th Street as a “transition zone” between Queens West and Hunters Point and complements the significant open space resource of John F. Murray Playground.”