The biggest issues that face Queens CB6

Mar 16, 2019

Community Board 6 encompasses the neighborhoods of Forest Hills and Rego Park. To outsiders, Forest Hills is best known for its upscale Tudor houses in its Forest Hills Gardens section and for and once being home to the U.S. Open at the Forest Hills Stadium (now a concert venue). Neighboring Rego Park (named after the Real Good Construction Company) is home to a number of malls and is one of Queens’s premier shopping destinations.

Rapper and actor Awkwafina, who grew up in Forest Hills, summarized the neighborhood well when she said, “Forest Hills Gardens is I think one of the most upscale, gated communities. It’s primarily Victorian. There used to be a tennis stadium there. They had a limited Adidas shoe that said ‘Forest Hills.’ This is a beautiful gated area with all these beautiful residential houses. When you go to the other side of Forest Hills, away from the gated community, across Queens Boulevard, it becomes more ethnic.”[1]

The demographics of CB6 have changed significantly over the past few decades, with the white majority population declining in share (-12.6%) between the 2000 and 2010 Censuses and Asian and Hispanic populations gaining share (+19.1% and +17.4% respectively). But these demographic shifts have not yet been reflected in local political representation. Members of CB6 are poor demographic representatives of the community at large, with the board over-representing white people and under-representing Asian and Hispanic people.[2]

Along with this demographic change come other changes in the neighborhood. A number of anchor businesses on Austin Street (the neighborhood’s main business thoroughfare) have closed their doors and storefronts have turned over. “Part of the charm of Forest Hills was that there were many small businesses, mom-and-pop shops, and they’ve now given way to a bunch of banks and chain stores, and the character of Forest Hills is changing,” said an author of a book about Forest Hills.[3]

A number of policy and politics battles are borne by this change. One faction of residents argues for preserving the status quo that made the neighborhood so idyllic through the decades, while another argues for preparing the neighborhood for the future to allow it to adapt to changing times. These arguments have played themselves out on the pages of the local press and in the monthly meetings of CB6, particularly in the form of four major issues – bike lanes, the former Parkway Hospital, school overcrowding, and a new library.

The most contentious issue facing CB6 is the implementation of safety improvements and bike lanes along Queens Boulevard. The street had for years been known as the “Boulevard of Death” (and fatality metrics gave credence to that name). Between 1990 and 2017, 186 people were killed on Queens Boulevard (138 of whom were pedestrians).[4] In an effort to calm traffic along the route, the Department of Transportation has begun adding a number of safety features, including a bike lane. The results have been significant in the areas where implementation has already begun. There have been no fatalities, and pedestrian injuries have decreased by 55% – an argument that is regularly touted by pro-cycling groups like Transportation Alternatives.[5]

But the bike lanes have still been a hotly debated issue. Some business owners along Queens Boulevard in Rego Park – where the bike lanes have already been established – claim that they are suffering financial losses and blame the lanes (and the resultant loss of parking spaces) for decreased patronage and declining business of their establishments. “People have no parking lot, so it’s hard to shop around,” one business owner said. “I don’t really see people bike the area.”[6]

CB6 voted last year 23 to 11 against the bike lanes coming to Forest Hills, with the major argument being the loss of 220 parking spaces.[7] Seniors make up 18.3% of the neighborhood (a higher proportion than all but four of New York City’s 59 local community boards), and they were particularly opposed to the bike lanes. Before the vote, one board member said, “There’s one population that uses parking more than bikes— and that’s seniors and disabled people. And seniors and disabled people are not finding parking spots … We’re discriminating against these groups because they’re not going to hop on a bike.”[8]

City Council Member Karen Koslowitz, who represents Forest Hills and Rego Park, had initially expressed support for the bike lanes but later withdrew her backing. “She is not opposed to [protected] bike lanes, but she is opposed to the DOT plan,” her spokesperson said. “She feels that they are taking away too many parking spaces.” But because the bike lanes are a “mayoral priority” and have been put on the city’s agenda by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the DOT is still pushing ahead with its plan[9] (although progress has been slow).[10]

Meanwhile, a recent rezoning proposal that surprisingly sped through community review from a community that is usually wary of development was the rezoning of the site of the former Parkway Hospital. Parkway – the city’s only privately owned hospital – shut down in 2008,[11] and the site lay abandoned for a decade until a developer unveiled plans last year to construct two residential towers –one 216-unit market rate building and one 135-unit building designated as affordable housing for seniors.[12] (The usual pro-parking wing of residents did voice opposition to this plan because “180 total accessory parking spaces would be provided for the entire zoning lot in the cellar level of the new residential building.”)[13]

Because of the large proportion of seniors who live in CB6, the rent burden that almost half of all residents face (44.9% of households spend at least 35% of their income on rent, slightly higher than the city overall), and the loss of housing units between 2000 and 2010 (CB6 was only one of six community boards that lost housing units in that time), the proposal to include affordable housing for seniors was welcome in the community. The proposal also fits into a number of de Blasio’s mayoral priorities around Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and Affordable Independent Residences for Seniors (“The federal government has gotten out of the business of building senior housing, so New York City is jumping into it in a big way. We won’t let seniors be pushed out of the neighborhoods they helped build,” de Blasio said).[14]

CB6 approved the developer’s rezoning application, with a caveat that they use union construction – spurred by a number of members of the Service Employees International Union, Local 32BJ, who came to the community board meeting and pleaded their case.[15] Union representatives “urged the applicant to agree to providing good jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits for workers in Queens and emphasized that the Parkway Hospital was formerly an important source of economic opportunity.”[16] (When the hospital closed in 2008, an estimated 600 people lost their jobs, including roughly 300 members of 1199 SEIU, the National Health Care Workers’ Union.)[17] The proposal then went to Queens Borough President Melinda Katz’s Office, who echoed the decision made by CB6: “Reuse of the site to provide housing especially affordable housing and housing for seniors also meets a growing need of the community … The applicant should work with the building trades and labor unions that represent these workers.”[18]

One of the main concerns that residents had about the Parkway Hospital rezoning was its proximity to the elementary school P.S. 196 and the potential strain that new housing units could put on educational infrastructure in an area that already faces school overcrowding. Last year, P.S. 196 had a kindergarten waitlist of 63 students. “I could look outside my window and see P.S. 196,” one parent said. “It’s so frustrating that I have to fight for my child to get into the school she should be in already.”

Queens public schools operate at 106% capacity, an indicator that makes it hard to ignore the problem of school overcrowding, which Katz has made one of her top borough-wide priorities. “Our families and neighborhoods are growing rapidly, outpacing the creation of seats at our schools,” she said. “If we’re serious about giving our kids better lives than we dreamed of having for ourselves, we cannot afford to be shortchanged.”[19] The Department of Education is working to address the school overcrowding issue in CB6. The New York City School Construction Authority is adding new wings and floors to P.S. 144 and P.S. 303 to add a combined 1,100 new seats by 2019, while P.S. 196 will receive a 250-seat addition by 2022.[20]

Another symptom of CB6’s strained educational infrastructure is the current inadequacy of the size of the Rego Park branch of the Queens Public Library. The current library has less than 8,000 square feet of space and serves almost 200,000 people a year. “The library is not much larger than a fast-food restaurant and it’s serving tens of thousands of people in this neighborhood,” one CB6 member said.[21]

Although the Rego Park Library has been promised for years by de Blasio (“libraries are at the heart of neighborhoods across the city, and I am thrilled to announce that Rego Park will have a new facility to meet its needs”),[22] Katz (“these substantial investments are not only for the long-awaited expansion of the Rego Park library, but for the children, seniors and families of Rego Park”), Koslowitz (“we’ve been waiting since 1993”),[23] and Queens Library CEO Dennis Walcott (“this financial commitment represents the culmination of a great deal of hard work and advocacy on behalf of the Rego Park community and the tens of thousands of customers who visit this library each year”),[24] it is still nowhere near completion. The project was fully funded in 2017 and is currently in the design phase, which will take several years.

While we wait for the Rego Park library expansion to finish construction, CB6 is undergoing a demographic shift and experiencing a crisis of housing and educational infrastructure. It will be the job of our elected officials, appointed representatives, for-profit and non-profit interest groups, and residents to guide us through these challenges in a responsible manner to ensure the long-lasting wellbeing of our neighborhood and our community.