The future of development on Staten Island is about to take a drastic turn. Last Tuesday, the Staten Island Growth Management Task Force released its final report on controlling development. And last Wednesday, Borough President James Molinaro’s six downzoning applications for the north and mid-island went into effect. According to the Staten Island Advance, these two initiatives will affect 90% of the low-density residential areas on Staten Island. A city press release said that the Borough Presidents’s rezoning alone will affect 40% of the residential lots on Staten Island.

Main recommendations of the Growth Management Task Force include increased parking requirements, larger lot sizes and increased distance between homes and mandatory street tree planting for all new development. Under the recommendations, single family homes are now required to have two parking spaces rather than one and double family homes are required to have three spaces rather than two. The parking rules will also no longer count front yard parking, instead requiring driveways placed alongside houses.

City and borough officials have yet to explain how Staten Island is going to house a mixed income work force and a rapidly growing economy after the recommendations go into effect (see MTR #429). Builders and some other business interests seem the only opposition to downzoning. They cite a potential affordable housing crisis and said recently that "downzoning imposes limits on units; it does not necessarily limit new building."

The Growth Management Task Force’s report says that over the last decade the Island’s population grew by 17%. Job growth has also skyrocketed. The new jobs on the Island are not all high income, and many workers will not afford a single family dwelling in a recently downzoned neighborhood. It is possible that low and medium wage earners could be stuck commuting from other parts of NYC and from NJ, adding traffic and transit burdens.

By 2020, vehicle miles traveled are expected to increase 23% on the Staten Island Expressway, according to the NY State DOT. Increased parking requirements may reduce parked cars on a street, but it may also boost car ownership on the Island. So far, no growth zones have been identified to complement the neighborhoods that are to be kept at lower densities, so that growth has some outlet and could possibly be served by mass transit.

Hopefully, some of these questions will be answered in the upcoming public review process. The City Planning’s commercial zoning recommendations, which are scheduled to be released later this year, may also shed light on how growth is to be encouraged in some areas, while slowed in others.

City officials say the Task Force’s recommendations will be approved in about a year. The full report can be found on line: www.nyc.gov/html/gmtf/pdf/si_final_report_nov_26.pdf. 

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