Even in the last five years, when the peninsula has made advances in bridging these contrasts, the progress has been mixed. Thousands of new housing units are being built, most through the efforts of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). HPD’s units have sold before construction has even started, at prices unheard of in the area, bringing new life and money to the peninsula. But most of the privately developed units, built in nearby neighborhoods with permissive zoning regulations that allowed large units to be built on small lots, have not sold nearly as well. The developers overbuilt in neighborhoods with fragile or nonexistent markets that have since crumbled.
Because they consider their investment already lost, many speculative developers have struck deals with the city to house the formerly homeless in order to recoup at least some money. Some of these developers-turned-landlords have neglected basic maintenance responsibilities. Concentrations of absentee landlords plus high-needs people with minimal access to basic services and amenities means entire neighborhoods have been left neglected. “They said the Rockaways would be the new Hamptons,” said Anthony Green, a lifelong Far Rockaway resident in his mid-40s. “This isn’t the new Hamptons. More like the new ghetto.”
Even though the city has initiated a rezoning to curb out-of-context development, the experience nonetheless perpetuates many residents’ sour view of city government. Some residents blame city agencies for taking advantage of the area’s housing plight by what they see as an intentional concentration of formerly homeless people, though in many cases it’s unclear what else city agencies could have done.
“The city and the state have been destroying the Rockaways for 40 years,” said Jon Gaska, district manager for the peninsula's Community Board 14, expressing a feeling commonly heard in the area. “Over the last 10 years we’ve done a good job of keeping them from doing that. But with the overdevelopment and vacancies, they’re back at it again. It’s like they give it to you with one hand, and take it away with the other.”
A long-awaited moment of hope
The history of the Rockaways has been indelibly shaped by real estate speculation built on shaky foundations. The Arverne neighborhood takes its name from Remington Vernam, a speculator who acquired and resold disputed land titles for massive profits in the 1850s. (The name comes from his signature, R. Vernam.) It's the center of the area's development, located just east of the center of the peninsula.
