The Mayor is Right: Rezone Jamaica

Julia Vitullo-Martin, May 2007

"Jamaica is the future of New York," says Andrew Manshel, Senior Vice President of Real Estate Development for the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC). "It has an extraordinary transportation infrastructure—but one that's underused. It has direct access to the airport, transportation to Midtown via the Long Island Railroad, and is 15 minutes from downtown Brooklyn." Yet Jamaica is astonishingly underdeveloped, which Manshel argues is in part due to outdated zoning that has held back development for decades. Indeed, much of the recent development that has occurred is governmental and has had to be exempted from industrial-only zoning in order to proceed. Obsolete zoning's dead hand is only now being lifted from large swaths of property that have remained blighted, even vacant, as much of the rest of the city has boomed.

LARGEST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE IN NEW YORK
Jamaica is so underdeveloped that it could easily become the poster child for Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 strategy of encouraging growth in transit-rich areas. In its search for land to accommodate New York's projected one million new residents—and the accompanying jobs—the Bloomberg administration identified Jamaica early. In February the administration initiated a rezoning that is not only one of the largest in city history, it is also, geographically, the city's largest current economic development initiative. With the rezoning of some 368 blocks, the plan would allow over 4.5 million square feet of commercial and retail development, along with more than 5,000 new units of housing. The highest density will rightly be positioned at transit hubs, while one- and two-family-house neighborhoods away from the hubs will be protected.

Few neighborhoods have the transit resources of Jamaica, which hosts the Long Island Railroad and its newly renovated station, the AirTrain to JFK, and several stops along the E and F subway lines.

Yet Jamaica's public transportation is far from perfect. "Jamaica is where transit meets rubber," says GJDC president Carlisle Towery. "Jamaica doesn't really serve the northeastern quadrant of Queens, for example. You can't get here from Bayside except by car." One paradoxical result is a sense of congestion on the streets even as the area remains underdeveloped. As a result, the city's proposals for upzoning have needed to be unusually sensitive and precise so as to not upset the merchants and residents who often complain about a lack of parking.

The rezoning is intended to encourage high-density development along the transit corridors, shield the lovely residential areas beyond the downtown, and protect the strong industrial sections. "Rezoning is all about balance," says Manshel, noting that Jamaica has both the largest Twinkie factory in the East, which provides 1,000 jobs, as well as New York City's only operating dairy. Both will be safeguarded under the new zoning, and a nearby concrete plant will also be grandfathered in.

HIGHER DENSITY AND TRAFFIC
Arguing in his 2007 Earth Day speech that "as the city continues to grow, the costs of congestion—to our health, and to our economy—are only going to get worse," Mayor Bloomberg announced his revolutionary plan for constraining traffic by imposing congestion charges on cars driving into Manhattan. In the heart of Queens, Jamaica is a working example both of daily congestion and its frequent companion: flawed public policy.

For 30 years government agencies have constructed headquarters, courts, and offices on Jamaica's vacant land to make up for the lack of private investment in the area. Over the years ever increasing numbers of government employees have chosen to drive to work—and park for free on the streets of Jamaica by displaying government placards. Whole blocks are lined with placard-protected cars parked illegally, in front of hydrants, blocking driveways, impeding corners and intersections, and causing parking-induced congestion.

In his campaign to win support for his congestion pricing pilot, the Mayor should begin by cracking down immediately on the placard abuse of city agencies—starting with the police department and its forensic lab which is housed in a converted Montgomery Ward's. As Carlisle Towery points out, garages are plentiful in Jamaica—but they are slightly more inconvenient than parking on the street in front of city buildings.

PROTECTING RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS
Jamaica's downtown is surrounded by some of the prettiest neighborhoods in New York—Jamaica Estates, Kew Gardens, Saint Albans, Hollis, and others. Many blocks have fought their way back from the blight of the 1970s and early 1980s, and their residents are suspicious of any government-proposed change—especially something as radical as upzoning commercial strips. But the mayor's plan goes far towards protecting the low-rise character of residential blocks, and Jamaicans should welcome the proposed new development that will bring with it greatly improved services and retail outlets. The particular target of residential complaint is an odd one—the plan's proposal to permit 7-to-12-story buildings on Hillside Avenue, which is now quite a forlorn, occasionally derelict, street.

An absurdity of the (still functioning) 1961 zoning code is that it often fails to distinguish density between major thoroughfares and residential streets, which often leads to the underdevelopment of the former and out-of-scale development of the latter. Correcting this inconsistency has been an ongoing theme of Bloomberg administration rezonings. Thus, City Planning Director Amanda Burden announced on May 21 that public review of a parallel, protectionist rezoning of St. Albans and Hollis had begun.

SURELY A STRONG FUTURE
Jamaica's business leaders, political officials, and residents have fought hard to bring the neighborhood back from what Carlisle Towery calls the "traumatic times" of the 1960s and 1970s, when Jamaica was "malled" by the growth of suburban shopping malls and the city's own sales tax. Or as Steve Malanga summarized in 2004, Jamaica "began to suffer in the early 1960s from rising crime, suburban competition, and the city's sales-tax hikes. White-collar jobs evaporated: a flock of small law firms migrated to Long Island, for instance, taking their workers with them. By the late 1960s, the once- bustling shopping area was described as 'shabby' and ‘totally deteriorating’ in press reports. But then the Jamaica chamber of commerce sparked a series of revival projects, including New York's first special-assessment district, the forerunner of today's highly effective business improvement districts (BIDs), in which local businesses chip in to pay for better street furniture or increased security or sanitation. Under prodding from the chamber, merchants along 165th Street kicked in thousands for a new pedestrian mall, and they nudged city government to tear down the El that darkened the street. Slowly, change came, as minority and immigrant shop owners opened for business beside the established retailers who had decided to stay and fight to revive the strip."

The rezoning will enhance and strengthen the economic revival already underway.

WHAT’S NEXT
City Planning certified the rezoning plan in early February, thus beginning the seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Queens Community Board 12, which covers Jamaica, voted down parts of the plan in early May. Their disparate concerns included apprehensions about increased density and traffic, as indeed, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement warns. Meanwhile, Community Board 8, which covers surrounding neighborhoods, voted down the entire plan, objecting to what they considered a lack of new services needed for growth, especially new classrooms. Members of both community boards objected to the city's suggestion that it might use eminent domain to acquire property near the transit hub.

In addition to overcrowded schools, southeastern Queens has the ongoing problem of a high water table, which makes construction very expensive and sometimes dangerous. The Bloomberg administration says it will address all objections. The City Planning Commission has 60 days to vote on the plan, which it will almost surely approve. It then goes to the City Council, where, as usual, there is sure to be a fight. All will be resolved by mid-September.