Pratt Center for Community Development

Planning, Building, & Educating for Change.

Pratt Center eNews, Winter 2005

In this Issue:

The Balancing Act: Development, the Environment and New York's Neighborhoods

At our conference earlier this month, I was inspired anew by the remarkable efforts of so many people to make growth work for their neighborhoods. In communities throughout the city, residents are anxious about what development means -- and they are learning and organizing in response. In some cases, of course, they are fighting against proposals they feel they can't live with. In others, diverse groups are seeking to balance competing interests and needs. And in some cases, residents themselves are the ones proposing the changes.

It will take even more creative organizing and planning to address the challenges our city is facing as it adds tens of thousands of new residents each year. Too often development fails at what should be some of the primary goals: to make neighborhoods better, and to improve the lives of the 20% of New Yorkers who live below the poverty line.

If we want New York City to be a genuine city of opportunity -- for new residents and for old -- we must build on the work of grassroots leaders, with allies in the public sector and the development community, to make growth truly work for New York's neighborhoods.

We look forward to continuing this work with you in 2006.

Sincerely,

Brad Lander
Director, Pratt Center

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In The News

Making Space for Family Day Care

Although NYC has far too few day care slots, a state agency recently threatened to close down many "family day care" providers (people who care for kids in their homes) throughout the city ... if they could not quickly invent a second means of egress. The Pratt Center provided research for a report on the issue that was released last week by Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, FUREE. The report Stop the Shutdowns: A Look at Group and Family Day Care & Egress Policy in Brooklyn, looks at three Brooklyn neighborhoods that have been identified as communities with the highest need for childcare in the City. On the same day that FUREE released the report (after a months-long campaign), New York State agreed to regulations that will allow many home-based providers to remain open.

Read the news stories...

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Queens balances explosive growth with smart development

Growth is hitting Woodside, Sunnyside, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights in dramatic fashion, and the Pratt Center is working with community groups to create a plan to guide development in ways that will benefit the borough and its communities.

Immigration is fueling the population growth. During the 1990s, the population of this large section of Queens jumped 25%, to 311,536. Yet the number of homes and apartments in these communities has not kept pace. As a result, rents are rising, affordable housing is scarce, 30% of families are severely overcrowded, and the schools are far beyond their capacity.

Local Community Boards and the Department of City Planning have recognized that increased demand is creating a speculative environment. They have pushed for downzoning to ward off over-development and gentrification. While this is understandable, it reinforces the housing crisis and offers no opportunity for development to meet the needs of the communities' large immigrant population.

Working in partnership with Asian Americans for Equality and Forest Hills Community House, the Pratt Center is helping to create a positive community response to these conditions. The groups are spearheading a community-led planning initiative, to guide new construction and carefully balance the neighborhoods' character with the need for more affordable housing, schools, and open space. Through visioning sessions, surveys, and conversations, community residents will articulate what their neighborhoods need and how they should (and shouldn't) grow.

The process is designed to give immigrants, who make up 60% of the population of these neighborhoods, a new pathway towards participation in local decision-making. With resident-led planning to guide future development, these neighborhoods can grow in ways that work for residents, old and new.

Read more...

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Community-friendly development in East New York

The Corner of New Lots Avenue and Barbey Street, with new mixed-use development.
The Corner of New Lots Avenue and Barbey Street, with new mixed-use development.

For the past six years, the large lot at the corner of New Lots Avenue and Barbey Street in East New York has been the site of a successful summertime farmers' market. The market -- created by the United Community Center and the Local Development Corporation of ENY, with help from the Pratt Center -- boasts sales of $90,000 a year. Unlike many of the upscale markets in Manhattan, 80% of the buyers use federal food assistance to fund their purchases.

But now that the boom in development has hit the far-reaches of the outer boroughs, the City solicited proposals to redevelop the site. The Pratt Center teamed up with the Local Development Corporation of ENY to submit a proposal that would preserve the farmers' market while creating 60 units of affordable housing and 6,000 square feet of retail space. The city says it will choose the winning plan in February 2006.

Tara Siegel, the Pratt Center's Rose Architectural Fellow and lead designer on the proposal (assisted by architectural staff Preston Johnson and Melissa Caruso, and Perry Winston, the Center's architectural director) created a design with a green roof, photovoltaics to help power interior lights and flexible retail space for a food co-op run by the LDC, which will open out on the farmer's market. The residential mix will include 39 two-bedroom apartments, 8 three-bedroom apartments, and 13 one-bedroom units.

Read more...

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Sunset Park: the greening of an industrial neighborhood

Community members participate in the October charrette.
Community members participate in the October charrette.

The United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park has embarked on an innovative effort to create a greenway along the industrial waterfront in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

UPROSE sees the project as something much more than a pathway to link Brooklyn Heights to Bay Ridge. They see a chance to gain long-denied access to waterfront open space for a diverse, working-class community.

A key challenge is to give residents safe and easy passage across busy avenues and an industrial area, to the new parkland being created on the waterfront. Many residents depend on the local maritime and factory jobs; more walk to work than in any other Brooklyn community. They want a neighborhood which is "greened," without being gentrified.

So Joan Byron, Paula Crespo, and Rachana Sheth of the Pratt Center are helping UPROSE and community leaders to identify traffic calming, urban design, landscaping, and other planning solutions borrowed from Barcelona and Bogota. The goal: a more livable, greener, and pedestrian-friendly -- but still decidedly mixed-use -- community.

Read more...

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Sustaining the South Bronx: Majora Carter and Joan Byron

The South Bronx. A generation from the devastation of the 70s, the phrase still conjures images of urban decay. Few people hear it and think of innovative environmentalism. But more and more, they are.

The MacArthur Foundation's recent recognition of Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx, shined a spotlight on a remarkable decade of work to reclaim neighborhoods through organizing for environmental justice. The infrastructure that has choked the area for decades is now being put to work for the community.

Joan Byron, director of the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative at the Pratt Center, has worked closely with Bronx community groups throughout this struggle. Journalist Robert Neuwirth recently sat down with Joan and Majora to discuss happenings in the South Bronx.

Read more...

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Lost in the Jargon?

What is "421a" (or 421b, 421g, 420c, or even J51)?

Though it is sometimes hard to believe these days, not too long ago there was very little housing construction or renovation outside of midtown Manhattan. So back in the 1970s and 80s, NYC gave developers big incentives to build. If an owner renovated property, or built a new building on vacant land, the city would reduce or eliminate the taxes for 20 years or more.

Some of these programs generated affordable housing. But "421-a" -- the program for new construction -- gives a 10, 15, or even 25 year tax break to most market-rate new construction in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and even lower and upper Manhattan. Over the next year, watch for a debate about how the program should be changed to create more affordable units.

In the meantime, if you want a guide to the alphabet soup of the City's tax incentive programs, you can find it at http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/for-owners/private-owner-tax-inc.html

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Support the Pratt Center

Please take a moment to make a year-end tax-deductible contribution to the Pratt Center. As is illustrated in this newsletter, the work of the Pratt Center takes place in many different venues. But one thing never changes -- the driving force is to make this city a more just, equitable, and sustainable place for all New Yorkers.

With your support, we will keep working in church basements, coffee shops, school auditoriums, and city hall to help communities create plans, devise new policies, and build projects that resonate in every corner of our city. To contribute, click here.

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