Quality of Living Analysis for Greenpoint, Brooklyn Essay Example for Free

Quality of Living Analysis for Greenpoint, Brooklyn EssayGreenpoint Greenpoint, Brooklyn is a cultur whollyy vibrant neighborhood full of a wide range of retail shops, restaurants, bars venues, banks, and other services. It is for the most part occupied by people of Polish descent (43. 6% according to the 2000 Census) and of Hispanic descent (19. 2%. ) The median income is $33,578, signifi stoogetly lower than the corresponding national average of $41,994.Even with the median income in Greenpoint be almost $10,000 less than the national average, it has more(prenominal) of the same difficult characteristics shared by most spic-and-span York City neighborhoods namely igher-than-average housing prices, overcrowded schools, luxuriouslyer utility prices, high local taxes, and lack of high paid Jobs- all of which create a much higher total cost of living than most cities in the United States. A very low proportion of Greenpoint residents own their homes. According to the 200 0 census, only when 19. 2% of residents possess the homes they were living in, versus the 66. % national average. Rent prices have withal consistently been on the rise, despite a a few(prenominal) significant hiccups since the November 2008 financial crisis. It could be a great advantage to local residents if a rogram was set up providing local tax breaks for first time home owners in Greenpoint. Also, if the budget would allow, the City could match the national governments pledge of $8000 in assistance for first time homebuyers. With $16,000 in assistance, and lowered taxes, m round(prenominal) Greenpoint residents who otherwise would non be able to purchase a home might be able to afford that option.A lower percentage of Greenpoint residents graduate high school than the national average (70. 4% vs. 80. 4%), which is in like manner true for those with Bachelors degrees (21. 2% vs. 24. 4%). This lack of higher education hinders peoples likelihood of getting high aying Jobs, and in turn, makes it harder for them to move out of poverty into the middle class. A no-cost GED training center should be set up on Greenpoint Avenue to assist high school dropouts (of any age) in getting a diploma. Similarly, a Greenpoint GED College fund should be set up, to appropriate full CUNY scholarships for the top 10% of the graduates of these GED programs.This not only would turn tail many an(prenominal) people to seek their own education who otherwise wouldnt, but it would also prevent many of the best students from slipping through the cracks, and ensure that more Greenpoint kids got a chance to go to college. A sulfurous button issue for Greenpoint (and Brookyn as a whole) is land-use and learning. In 2005, the City Council passed a excogitate for the re-zoning and education of much of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfront, as well a large break of the upland area. The plan is known as the Greenpoint-Williamsburg fine-tune Use and Waterfront Plan.The pl an focuses on changing zoning regulations along the northern Brooklyn waterfront and some of the upland areas, loosely to allow for large residential take a shitings to be built. Many residents of the community were worried about the waterfront development uildings beingness built very high, and pushed for regulations limiting the number of condominium rental developments being geared only toward those with high incomes, and not toward those with average Greenpoint Williamsburg incomes (Williamsburg has an even lower median income than Greenpoint, $23,567. An attempt was made to strike a compromise between the community and the development groups, to solve both of these problems in one fell swoop. The compromise that was in the end passed is called the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Inclusionary Housing Program, which attempts to address concerns about both uilding height and low-income housing. The program stipulates that any development that includes a au indeedtic amount of low-c ost housing is eligible for a shock area bonus, meaning they are allowed to build higher than the base prohibition.There are 2 waterfront zones designated, R6 and R8 in R6 the base floor area restriction is up to 23 stories, in R8 it is 33 stories. With 20-25% of space within the development designated for affordable housing, this restriction can be embossed 4. 7% to 30 stories and 40 stories respectively. While in theory this idea sounds promising, in practice it will not accomplish the goals it claims to. First of all, if a impudently development chooses not to go past the floor area restrictions, then there is no positment that they provide any affordable housing.This leaves little bonus for developers to spend the extra money to build higher, and choose to include the low- income housing, as they only gain 4. 6% in floor area bonus, but have to designate over 20% of the total space of affordable housing. It ends up only inclining them against construct past the base floor area restrictions (which many residents believe are already far too lax, allowing for unnecessarily tall buildings that block other uildings views, and obstruct sunlight for large areas of the upland waterfront. I believe the plan should be changed to fill that any and all new developments include at least 10% affordable housing to protrude with. In addition to the affordable housing problem, the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Land Use and Waterfront Plan does not include any provisions for building new schools in the neighborhood. A new high school in Greenpoint is sorely needed, as most high school age students who cannot attend the Automotive Technical rail, which is the only populace high school in Greenpoint, end up attending schools in Ridgewood, Queens and Williamsburg.The plan also has no provisions for public daycare centers, tutoring or after-school programs, or improved transportation routes from the north waterfront area (which is very difficult to commute from). It would be prudent to adjust the plan to require at least some of these programs to be set up in the area, at the shared cost of the developers and the City. It is master(prenominal) to use contractors and building companies from the local area when building new developments in Greenpoint. Too often, contracts for restoration projects, and new developments end up going to companies not from Brooklyn.For instance the old Greenpoint Hospital, which has been gathering dust since 1982, is going to be converted in 240 units of affordable housing, but the contract for this conversion went to TNS Development Group, based in Queens. twain other contracts, from local Greenpoint community groups, were both rejected. A perfect sector to create high compensable Jobs in the local community is in skilled construction and building, it seems only right to award the quid of evelopment contracts that are available in the area to local contractors and edited to require that 50% of all building contracts from now on go to companies located in the 11222 area code.Shortly before her death, Jane Jacobs summed up the problems with the waterfront development plans in a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg The communitys plan does not cheat the future by neglecting to provide provisions for schools, daycare, recreational outdoor sports, and pleasant facilities for those things. The communitys plan does not promote new housing at the expense of both xisting housing and imaginative and economical new shelter that residents can afford.The communitys plan does not violate the existing scale of the community, nor does it insult the visual and economic advantages of neighborhoods that are precisely of the kind that incontrovertibly attract artists and other live-work craftsmen but the proposal put before you by city staff is an ambush containing all those destructive consequences. The roadblocks in the way of changing some of these plans would be great, and in order to make it possible, it would r equire a tremendous amount of public outcry and rassroots organization, in order to influence some major(ip) change of character in the highest levels of local power. If Mayor Bloomberg could be convinced to live up to his many campaign promises of building more public schools (and not Just charter schools), and more affordable housing, then maybe Greenpoint could get the funds and zoning changes needed to build a new High School and provide good housing for its largest demographic, the lower class.In order to fund some of these projects, taxes could be raised on all waterfront property that is not designated to low income ousing- which might provide some more incentive for developers to build more affordable housing in the area, and if it not, it might at least add some tax revenue that could help fund a new local high school.A plan that properly addresses all the issues in a neighborhood like Greenpoint would have to be much more expansive and detailed, and would surely encounter a lot of resistance from some local politicians and big development companies, but some of the ideas presented in this paper could have far-reaching positive consequences if they could gain enough public support, and be implemented.