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Major Issues for District 43




Restrictions Won’t End Parking Woes in Bay Ridge

April 8, 2005

by Sarah Stuteville

Parking is serious business in Bay Ridge. Shoppers, forced to double-park because there are no spaces along commercial strips, are subject to expensive tickets. Residents pay up to $250 a month to park in someone else’s driveway. And in the recent controversy over Sunday parking, the local councilmember was a leading voice for those who did not want to “pay to pray.”

Many residents would agree with a local man who assessed the problem while soaking up sun along Bay Ridge Avenue last week. “Parking?” he said. “In a word, it sucks.”

This sentiment is nothing new in Bay Ridge, but such feelings have intensified in recent years. Many residents claim that the influx of newcomers to the neighborhood has increased the area’s density beyond maximum capacity. As more Bay Ridge residents fan into the neighborhood looking for places to leave their cars, they crowd out shoppers along the neighborhoods commercial strips. Merchants and customers complain of aggressive ticketing of cars left double-parked as people run errands.

Some residents blame “ overdevelopment,” a buzzword among locals who complain that developers are buying one-family homes and replacing them with eight-family condos. Last month, the city adopted new zoning regulations to address this problem.

The new zoning regulations require that developers provide an off-street parking spot for each apartment or condominium in a building. The parking place can either be alongside the building or behind it. In the past, developers were required to provide only one parking spot for every three new apartments or condos built. The guidelines also restrict development in specific residential areas in an attempt to protect some older single-family homes.

“We’ve never had as stringent parking requirements as we have now,” said local Councilmember Vincent Gentile. He emphasized that Bay Ridge’s parking problems are more than just a hassle, “From a residential point of view it is a quality of life issue, and for local businesses on Third, Fourth, or Fifth Avenue it is a serious economic issue.”

Sam Dabas, who has owned The Family Store on Third Avenue for 25 years, agrees. “[Customers] double-park to run in and get something cause they have no choice and bam, they’re slapped with a $115 ticket,” he said. “They want to come to my store, they can’t park anywhere, so they don’t.”

Dabas hopes that the new zoning laws will make the situation better, but like many he acknowledges that Bay Ridge has problems that the regulations won’t fix.

Josephine Beekman, district manager of the local community board, suggests that the city also enforce laws against unlicensed curb cuts. Those who cut personal driveways, she pointed out, take away spots on residential streets. More parking spaces on these streets would mean more spaces for shoppers and merchants along the neighboring avenues as well.

Gentile recently introduced a bill that would create a city office to deal with enforcing existing laws on unlicensed curb cutting. “Basically the Department of Transportation and Department of Building have completely lost control of the curb cutting issue,” he said.



Bay Ridge: Fighting the Fedders Houses

February 7, 2004

By Paul Berger

Bay Ridge in southwest Brooklyn is known for its 100-year-old houses, off-street parking and sunlight reaching between the buildings. But for decades residents have worried about losing their "small town in a big city" atmosphere and have been fighting to save it.

The conflict goes back at least to the 1960s when older homes began giving way to high-rise blocks and three-story condominiums. When the 300-foot tall Bay Ridge Towers went up on 65th Street in the 1970s, locals decided enough was enough. In a bid to limit development, they lobbied for special zoning status for their community - and won. In 1978, the city established the Bay Ridge Special District that restricted construction to three stories on residential streets and eight stories on the avenues.

But many residents say the special district has not done enough to protect their elegant brick, brownstone and limestone houses, and some say it has even made the congestion worse. Not able to build higher, developers have built wider. Many of their new constructions hug every boundary line. Some developers have bought adjacent lots, and the combined them, building across former boundaries and thus blocking the sunlight. Now, land that once supported one or two families serves double, triple or quadruple that number.

Last year, a group took to the streets to protest the loss of their homes to condominiums and co-ops -- buildings they have labeled "Fedders houses" after the air-conditioning units that protrude from the outside walls. The impetus for the protest was 435 80th Street, where a three-story, one-family detached house had been bought by a developer only to be demolished so the lot could be used for condominiums.

According to the 2000 census, Bay Ridge's population grew by almost 11 per cent during the 1990s, from 110,612 to 122,542 people. As a result, Bay Ridge residents complain, their schools have become severely overcrowded. Motorists compete for precious parking spaces while commuters struggle to fit inside overcrowded subways. Locals fear the strain their burgeoning population will have on the police, fire service and sanitation.

The population increase has been accompanied by a sizeable shift in the ethnic make-up of the community. Between 1990 and 2000, the white non-Hispanic population fell by almost 10 per cent, from 93,102 to 84,120. Meanwhile, the Asian or Pacific community grew 123 per cent and now accounts for 14 per cent of the area's population.

Community Board 10's Zoning and Land Use Committee, which covers Bay Ridge, has conducted a zoning review and blames the special district for some of the neighborhood's problems. In the review published in December, the committee concluded that the district encouraged three-family Fedders houses because "the sole alternative seemed to be the mega-behemoths like Bay Ridge Towers".

"I have compared buildings like Bay Ridge Towers to a shark; you can see the fin coming. But Fedders houses are more insidious," says committee member Stephen Harrison. "They are like piranha; no [single] one of them is going to be a problem but when you have lots of them they are going to be a problem. That's what we are trying to avoid right now."

New York City Councilmember Vincent Gentile, who represents the area, says he is confident that a solution is within reach. Within the year, city planners will develop a zoning proposal for Bay Ridge that will include recommendations from the community. That proposal will then go through a formal review process.

Gentile is trying to convince planners to adopt a policy of "contextual zoning" that would force developers to consider the size, shape and design of surrounding buildings when planning any new construction.

Community Board 10 wants more. In its report "The Case for Preservation Zoning," the committee suggests "like for like" zoning. Under this plan, developers would have to replace any building they demolish with a building of similar dimensions and an equivalent number of occupants.

The committee also addresses another problem that has contributed to the new buildings in Bay Ridge: the decline of some churches in the community. Parishes, which often occupy whole blocks and include churches and schools, can be sold off as the congregation shrinks. The land can then become the site of new buildings. Many of the parishes, like St Patrick's on 94th Street and 4th Avenue or Our Lady of Angels on 4th Avenue between 73rd and 74th Streets, are located on lots that allow high-density, eight-story buildings.

To deal with this, the committee recommends that these sites be rezoned to prevent high-density development. It also wants to bar the consolidation of adjacent lots.

"We are not trying to preserve a snapshot of Bay Ridge from 1940," said Harrison. "But . . . we are trying to preserve the population density and basic look of the community."

But some change is irreversible. Plans for development at 435 80th Street caused such alarm that two local residents attempted to buy the property back from the developer, Joseph Cammarata Jr. One, Rosemarie O'Keefe, offered $870,000 - $80,000 more than Cammarata had paid for it -- but she was unsuccessful. Today, work is almost complete on the new three-story building that will house six families.

A neighbor, who did not wish to be named, was philosophical. "What can you do?" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "At least the developer has promised to meet the requests of the community and keep the fa?ade similar. So many of them don't care how the community feels."

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Related Story:

New York's boroughs are undergoing the biggest building boom in three decades, which some (including Michael Bloomberg) say threatens the character of some neighborhoods.



Transportation Woes

July 23, 2003

Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights have serious transportation concerns. The subway stations renovation, over 30,000 seniors depend heavily on limited bus service, and the narrow streets are often jammed with traffic and parked cars.



Changing Demographics

July 23, 2003

The areas of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights are known for their traditionally Irish and Italian-American residents. However, a recent study predicts that the area is also the fastest growing Chinese American neighborhoods in New York City.




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ALL DISTRICT 43 MAJOR ISSUES
Restrictions Won’t End Parking Woes in Bay Ridge
(Apr 08, 2005)

Bay Ridge: Fighting the Fedders Houses
(Feb 07, 2004)

Transportation Woes
(Jul 23, 2003)

Changing Demographics
(Jul 23, 2003)

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