Folks,

I just want to bring this to your attention.  Recently there was a rezoning of certain areas of the Kissena Park Civic Association from R2 to R2A that was part of the general broader Auburndale – Oakland Gardens – Hollis Hills Rezoning which was adopted on 10/27/10.  Those area that were rezoned to R2A noticed a increase (at least 2x or 3x more than areas that wasn't rezoned) in property tax due to the rezoning and reclassification which was displayed in the tenatative assessment roll.  If you search the property assessement roll and do the calculation you see see a big difference.  All this information is available in the nyc.gov finance website (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/home/home.shtml).  For example, my house was rezoned and now i am seeing a 300 dollar extra in real estate tax while my neighbor across the street is noticing a 100 dollar extra increase for the 2011-2012 year.  I did a search for multiple houses across my block, all the one that are rezoned all are paying around 300 extra while houses (across the street) are see an average of 100 dollar.

Hui

The fact is owning a home in an R2A zone makes your home more valuable and taxes are based on property value. Although you have to pay slightly more in real estate tax you will reap a higher price if and when you sell your home. R2A zoning has added protections which better insure the future character of your neighborhood. That is the very esence of the rezoning process--------present and future protection of the character of our neighborhoods.

with real estate prices going down, i don't think this is true that it will retain or increase the value of our homes.  Also, alot of people don't intend to sell our homes since we enjoy this neighborhood. yes, it will protect the characters of our neighborhood, but at what cost?  I think it's fine with the current R2 zoning, with only one family houses.  I find it's very funny that across my street it's R2 and on the other side it's R2A.

   It's great that you, like me, intend to remain Kissena Park Neighborhood residents for a long time as we are well aware that we are living in an area protected by many dedicated residents and a strong, hard working, civic association. I truly respect your oppinion regarding zoning issues because it is one of the reasons I have been working towards the rezoning of our neighborhood for more than 25 years as zoning chairman of the KPCA and Zoning & Code Enforcement Co-Chair of the Queens Civic Congress. My first major rezoning negotiations were with Mayor Ed Koch.

   I agree that R2 zoning, for the most part, helps protect us from overdevelopement. Over recent years spot builders have been building McMansions in low density residential R2 neighborhoods like ours using flaws in the law related to the R2 zone. In some cases these oversized single family homes are illegally renovated and converted to serve more than one family or sometimes even become SROs which can cause sever damage to our neighborhood. The newly created R2A zone serves to repair the flaws that allow monster homes by including many new areas of the home in the FAR (floor area ratio). This helps reduce the overall size of the house and makes the house less apt to be used in a fashion detrimental to our community. This extra protection does make our homes more valuable an properties less apt to be abused by developers thus better protecting our quality of life.

    Thank you for your sincere interest in zoning issues in our community. Please feel free to speak with me at our next KPCA General Meeting in September.

   Looking forward to speaking with you in more detail,

                                                                                    Joe A