Scenarios like this one have become a constant for residents of Eastchester, Williamsbridge, Baychester, Wakefield and Woodlawn, who are watching their neighborhoods change before their eyes. Just south of the Westchester County line, these areas are sprouting new residences so fast that the breathing space between one home and the next, which locals long took for granted, is already becoming a memory. Citywide, the number of building permits issued for new privately owned residential units increased by 67.5 percent from 2000 to 2004, and the Bronx accounted for nearly 20 percent of those permits, despite containing only 16.5 percent of the city’s population.
Now residents of Community Board 12 are putting concerns about increased demand for public services, schools, open space and affordable housing at the forefront of quality-of-life discussions.
“You have people who had sunlight and now have no sunlight, who had open space and now have no space,” said Carmen Rosa, district manager of CB 12. Rosa is calling for closer scrutiny of building plans before permits are issued by the city’s Department of Buildings. She also recommends quick action to save the existing land left in her district. In 2000, only 6 percent of the district’s land was vacant, not including park land.
Of all the development taking place throughout the city, the Bronx has the space for additional buildings, so it’s a hotspot for developers, said CB12 Land Use Committee Chairman Joe Williams. “Houses go up just as quick and just as fast as you turn around,” he said. Developers build there because they can.
“Everyone is trying to build on every piece of property there is,” Williams said. In fact, the number of requests for new home addresses across the whole borough rose by 97 percent from 2002 to 2005, according to Deputy Borough President Earl Brown. Brown cited the figure last month during a town hall meeting at Richard Green Middle School in the Williamsbridge section of CB 12. The meeting was headlined: "Are We Overbuilding in the Northeast Bronx? What is our Plan for the Future?" and drew dozens of concerned residents. It was sponsored by City Councilmember Larry Seabrook, who represents the neighborhoods of CB 12.
The number of housing units issued building permits increased by 35 percent between 2000 and 2003, according to the Department of City Planning. And the Department of Buildings’ Buildings Information System shows an estimated 170 building permits were issued in CB 12 in 2006 alone.
CB 12 finds itself in the midst of the tug-of-war that is meeting the city’s housing needs while maintaining the character of neighborhoods. The rules of the game are written in the city’s zoning code, but residents are angry because they feel the game is played unfairly. New buildings in this traditionally working-class section of the Bronx often don’t fit the character of surrounding structures, even though building plans may conform to zoning regulations. For example, on 217th Street between Bronxwood and Barnes Avenues, a five-story, 14-unit apartment building was recently built between a detached single-family home and an attached two-family home. The older adjoining homes’ side windows are blocked by the cement side walls of the new building. Add to that the abundance of parking in the past, compared to the insufficiency in the present, and oldtimers feel put out.
