Big Ideas for Small Lots

Terreform cheering on Michael Sorkin Studio at last week’s Big Ideas Small Lots exhibition opening at the Center for Architecture. The exhibition was recently included in The Architect’s Newspaper must-see list for this summer.

Learn more about Sorkin Studio’s proposal:

Hiding in plain sight in New York City are nearly two dozen potential solutions to the city's affordable housing shortage. Small, irregular vacant lots that are residential-ready yet challenging in scale to develop, these 23 city-owned properties are the focus of the 2019 Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC competition, which has named as a finalist The City College of New York Distinguished Professor Michael Sorkin, Director of the Graduate Urban Design program at CCNY's Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, and president of Terreform, a nonprofit urban research center. Greenfill: House as Garden, submitted by Michael Sorkin Studio, is one of five finalists chosen from a field of 444 entries from 36 countries.

From: “CCNY's Michael Sorkin is finalist in NYC innovative affordable housing competition”

See also “New York City Selects Designers With Big Ideas for Small Lots” The Wall Street Journal and “New Exhibit Explores Creative Designs for Tiny, Underutilized Lots in NYC” Untapped Cities.

Zoned Out! Ridgewood and Bushwick

RIDGEWOOD. UR editor and CUNY - Hunter College professor emeritus Tom Angotti, will join the “Community Forum on Luxury Development in Ridgewood” organized by Ridgewood Tenants Union. The forum will take place on Saturday, August 3, 2:30-4:30p at the Ridgewood Branch - Queens Library.

BUSHWICK. Tom Angotti took part in a panel to “discuss methods of resistance with residents and community leaders from across the five boroughs”. More from The Brooklyn Eagle.

The event was organized by Bushwick-based political art collective, Mi Casa No Es Su Casa. A live recording of the event can be found here.

Excerpt from Mi Casa No Es Su Casa’s Change.org petition:

…But rezoning doesn't provide what our community needs and deserves.

It is for that reason that we oppose the rezoning of our community before irreparable harm is done to our neighbors in the name of progress. We know many of the local nonprofits that have engaged in this process and our local council members stand to gain from political favors from the city, but we stand for the people.

We demand that Community Board and Reynoso stop engaging with DCP, and to stop the rezoning of Bushwick.

Please join us in fighting for a people-led plan that will keep us in our homes and in our community.

Left to right: Cynthia Tobar and Pati Rodriguez of Mi Casa No Es Su Casa, economist Lynn Ellsworth, urban policy expert Tom Angotti, local historian Dennis Sinned and Bronx activist Chino May. Photo by Paul Stremple forThe Brooklyn Eagle.

#ICYMI: Zoned Out! author Tom Angotti writes about how New York City’s rezonings reinforce the chronic "color blindness” of city policy.“ “In New York City, Mayor de Blasio’s Rezonings Amplify Inequalities” (Metropolis)

For The Indypendent: “Real Estate Rules, Bureaucracy Obeys, Communities Rise Up”:

Outrageous rent increases. Illegal evictions and buyouts. It’s not just bad landlords doing this. It’s big real estate. And real estate has trusty allies in government. The only thing that stops them is when tenants organize and communities rise up.

….

A major challenge we face is deeply understanding this monster of a permanent government so we can change it. It is not good enough to get a seemingly progressive figure elected as mayor or city council representative. We need more radical community activism. We need more “guerillas in the bureaucracy” to cripple the institutional resistance to real democratic and just alternatives. When brave leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez step forward to run for office, they need more allies in government. Veteran community activists know that a strong “inside-outside” strategy is essential to every struggle against the powerful real estate machine.

A Timeline of The Obama Presidential Library and Terreform

Check out this interactive timeline made by Terreform research associate Casey Breen that tracks our work and interest in the development of the Obama Presidential Library.

From South Side Stories project page:

Our goal is to produce a series of proposals–including physical plans–that can channel the great history, energy, and creativity of these communities and leverage the huge impetus that the arrival of the Obama library will bring, not simply to its immediate surroundings but to a territory stretching from Bronzeville to Calumet. We intend to collaborate and work with any organization that looks forward to mobilizing positive changes on the South Side, in particular: the citizens, the city, the community activists, the University of Chicago, and the Obama Foundation.

The project will center itself on the belief that everyone should have access to a parity of rights and expression in developing their communities. A successful plan is one that is premised on the idea of a common “right to the city”, that addresses not only the needs of the community, but also, its desires.

More South Side Stories.

South Side Stories is also in our latest newsletter, Shifting Gears — check out all our other projects!