After an ongoing four year review, the City Council of Staten Island has finally approved the rezoning of part of the areas north shore. The main goal of the rezoning project is to expand the city by a fourteen block radius for new buildings like apartments, retail stores and offices. The expansion is to take place in the corridor between Tompkinsville and Stapleton.
The project received a lot of backlash from the City’s boards and councils, as many thought it to be not well planned out, a waste of time and resources, and not easy to carry out.
It took the work of one determined City Council member to have the plan put into motion, Debi Rose, continued to push the issue until it was approved, as she has a firm belief in the need for more housing in the city, and stated that it has been a difficult journey but she was willing and persistent to resolve the housing issue and get public investment for the project. Rose went on to explain how there have been concerns regarding the escalating housing costs all over the city and the subsequent unaffordability driving people out of neighborhoods they’ve been occupying for a long time now. She acknowledged such gears as real with the intent to address them for once and for all.
The vote ended up being approved by forty-four council members, and only opposed by two, Joe Borelli and Steven Matteo.
The rezoning led to approximately two thousand six hundred new apartments being built. Another plus side of the rezoning is more jobs are expected to be available. The De Blasio Administration estimated around one thousand new jobs to be on the market very soon after this development.
Part of the rezoning process is to build a new Cromwell Recreation Centre estimated to fill 3.5 acres of land, on a pier in Staten Island.
Although the plan is in motion, it is still receiving severe backlash from some council members. Vincent Accornero, land use chair of Community Board 1 described the process of rezoning Staten Island to be ‘a lot of fluff’. He went on to explain why he was against the process by saying that the current planning may not resolve the issues it aims to because of a lack of appropriate infrastructure proposed. He further opines that such a development is bound to attract a large number of people without providing them with an efficient infrastructure that will choke the purpose.
The city is working on the transportation aspect of the process thoroughly, by installing traffic lights, pedestrian islands, and wider sidewalks and medians. The Department of Transportation is even working on building a bus line to connect the new area with its surrounding called a Bus Rapid Transit line. Traffic monitoring systems are also being set up to keep the roads safe and reduce the amount of potential accidents.
However, even with such thorough planning, many remain skeptic. Simply put, it is a waiting game, to see whether the project will be successful or fail overtime.
Recent Comments