The quiet, massive rezoning of New York
By Sarah Laskow
While the dramatic, slow-motion failure of Michael Bloomberg’s Midtown East rezoning plan was sucking up the remaining oxygen in the last weeks of his administration, another big rezoning went forward with hardly any notice at all.
It covered 530 blocks of the city—in Ozone Park, way out at the end of the A train—and was the second-largest rezoning in the entire twelve years of the Bloomberg administration. It was also much more typical than Midtown East of the work the administration did to alter the shape of the city.
Sky-high condo buildings in neighborhoods like Williamsburg, West Chelsea and Long Island City attract their share of controversy. After all, it’s hard to ignore a shiny tower.
But most of the Bloomberg-era changes were more like this last rezoning in far-flung Queens: little-noticed, and more about determining what won’t be built than what will.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/02/8540743/quiet-massive-rezoning-new-york