Tag: planning

AOC Was Even More Wrong about Williamsburg Than We’d Thought

The Post, which seems pretty obsessed with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gets their facts confused in an effort to prove her “wrong”:

…contra AOC, the rezoned area [of Greenpoint and Williamsburg] now has more Hispanic residents, city data show — reversing a trend of decline since 1990. Oh, and Williamsburg hasn’t seen a drop in the number of lower-income households.

The Post is referring to a presentation that the Department of City Planning made at a community meeting last week (of which, hopefully a more detailed analysis to follow – it is a very interesting data dump). In that presentation, DCP showed charts comparing the Hispanic population in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2017. The Post reads this data as somehow excuplatory, but it really does not show what they think it does.

In their rush to a gotcha on @AOC, the Post ignores a few key facts that DCP also presented. Namely, that the share of Hispanic residents in the waterfront rezoning area dropped from 27% in ca. 2006-2010 to 23% in ca. 2013-2017. Yes, the population was up (by a small number in the waterfront rezoning area only – an area that historically has a smaller share of Hispanic residents). Overall, in the two rezoning areas (which excludes parts of the Southside and East Williamsburg with higher proportions of Hispanic residents), the Hispanic population did increase 15% between 2006 and 2017, but compared to 2000, the Hispanic population is still down in this area over 25% (and down almost 40% compared to 1990).

And the income factoid? Yes, the number of lower-income households (those earning less than $50,000 has stayed more or less flat (it has actually dropped very slightly). But the number of households earning more than $50,000 has tripled since 1990 and more than doubled since before the 2005 rezoning.

That sure looks a lot like gentrification.

But @AOC was wrong about one thing – there are not very many “hippies” in Williamsburg.

“The Greenpoint” Developer Offers India Street Elevated Walkway for Flooded Ferry Entrance

What happens if you rezone a neighborhood for thousands of new residents, but don’t bother to plan any infrastructure around it?

As I understand it, India Street’s catch basins don’t tie into the City’s sewer system, they never have. And the City doesn’t have plans for these hookups for a number of years out. So people who wanted to get to the India Street Pier (and the ferry) were facing years of having to parkour over the plastic barriers to get to the pier. But now the developer of the “The Greenpoint” condominium is addressing the access to India Street via a temporary raised sidewalk while (as they should, even though the lack of infrastructure isn’t their doing this is literally their front yard).