Search

The article focuses on critiquing the disparity between the rigorous public review procedures required under New York City's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). It highlights how state powers, facilitated by Empire State Development (ESD) through General Project Plans (GPP), often sidestep meaningful community engagement and oversight, thereby potentially infringing on property rights without sufficient public scrutiny.

The article delves into the housing affordability crisis in New York, analyzing the role of exclusionary zoning practices and advocating for state-level intervention to alleviate housing scarcity and economic disparities. It begins by outlining the severity of New York's housing shortage, emphasizing its exacerbation of economic, racial, and regional inequalities.

Given the need to reduce fuel emissions from transport many research studies have been devoted to the development of technologies and identification of new policies to tackle this problem. The majority of these strategies either increase the costs (e.g., new technology), are more time-consuming (i.e., choosing a more sustainable mode of transport), or encourage consumers to forgo travel plans (i.e., flights to holiday destinations). Implementing any of these changes is challenging for a society where cost, quality and time are the key motivators. The paper differs from previous research, given that the focus is not to slow down global warming, through the development of new technologies, or through inconveniences to lifestyle. Instead, the focus is to improve the sustainability of transport using current technology without increasing the cost or time factor. By using the concept of effective speed, this paper estimates the possible reduction in emissions, external costs and land use if people can be persuaded to choose the most cost-effective mode of transport. The effective speed is calculated by dividing the distance travelled by the time spent (i.e., travelling to work and earning the money to pay for the commute). This case study uses data from a survey of residents in New York City (NYC) and incorporates supporting data about commuting patterns in Germany. If people use their most cost-effective mode of transport in NYC, it is possible to have emission reductions of up to 14.7%, external cost reduction of 11.6% and a reduction in the time–area requirements of 16.5%. The results of this paper highlight that people do not always need to spend more time or money on their transport activity to travel in a more sustainable way. Indeed, encouraging people to use a mode of transport with a faster effective speed may even reduce the external effects for some. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent epidemiological studies have examined the associations between air pollution and birth outcomes. Regulatory air quality monitors often used in these studies, however, were spatially sparse and unable to capture relevant within-city variation in exposure during pregnancy. Methods: This study developed two-week average exposure estimates for fine particles (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) during pregnancy for 274,996 New York City births in 2008-2010. The two-week average exposures were constructed by first developing land use regression (LUR) models of spatial variation in annual average PM2.5 and NO2 data from 150 locations in the New York City Community Air Survey and emissions source data near monitors. The annual average concentrations from the spatial models were adjusted to account for city-wide temporal trends using time series derived from regulatory monitors. Models were developed using Year 1 data and validated using Year 2 data. Two-week average exposures were then estimated for three buffers of maternal address and were averaged into the last six weeks, the trimesters, and the entire period of gestation. We characterized temporal variation of exposure estimates, correlation between PM2.5 and NO2, and correlation of exposures across trimesters. Results: The LUR models of average annual concentrations explained a substantial amount of the spatial variation (R2 = 0.79 for PM2.5 and 0.80 for NO2). In the validation, predictions of Year 2 two-week average concentrations showed strong agreement with measured concentrations (R2 = 0.83 for PM2.5 and 0.79 for NO2). PM2.5 exhibited greater temporal variation than NO2. The relative contribution of temporal vs. spatial variation in the estimated exposures varied by time window. The differing seasonal cycle of these pollutants (bi-annual for PM2.5 and annual for NO2) resulted in different patterns of correlations in the estimated exposures across trimesters. The three levels of spatial buffer did not make a substantive difference in estimated exposures. Conclusions: The combination of spatially resolved monitoring data, LUR models and temporal adjustment using regulatory monitoring data yielded exposure estimates for PM2.5 and NO2 that performed well in validation tests. The interaction between seasonality of air pollution and exposure intervals during pregnancy needs to be considered in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 75% of the New York City Watershed is forested, and the majority of the land is owned hy family forest owners. Ownership fragmentation and development may impact both the working forested landscape and water quality. We surveyed the owners of intact and subdivided family forest parcels across various parcel sizes to gauge their awareness of forest management practices and to assess the potential property-level impacts of their activities on water quality. To support the landowner survey, we used field data on forest stocking and timber quality gathered at each property. Results indicate that owners of large parcels ( > 5 0 ac) hod significantly higher water quality awareness scores than did owners of small parcels and were more likely to hove a written forest management plan. Full-time resident owners were more likely to engage in practices that may negatively impact water quality more directly, such as adding structures and a driveway, which increases impervious surface orea and associated runoff, and using additives on their lawns, which can odd nutrients and chemicals to surface water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jamaica Bay portion of Gateway National Recreation Area, located next to highly urbanized New York City, faces many challenges to preserve and protect its natural, cultural, and recreational resources. To aid in the management of the park resources, detailed estuarine shoreline analyses of Jamaica Bay were undertaken using imagery taken in 1951, 1974, and 2006. A 15-class land use/land cover (LULC) classification scheme was created after doing an initial examination of the types of LULC in the 2006 orthoimagery and then applied in the analyses of the previous years. By quantifying how and where the shoreline has changed over the past 60 years, park managers can better assess the impact of management practices by comparing LULC of the shoreline within the park boundary to the LULC of the shoreline outside the park boundary before and after the park was created in 1972. Despite the heavy development of New York City and the trend for shoreline modification, the overall shoreline of Jamaica Bay has maintained large percentages of undeveloped vegetation and sandy beaches. Much of the LULC change has occurred in the creeks as a result of dredging and shape modification for residential and commercial uses. Park management has been effective in limiting the alteration of undeveloped shoreline although there have been significant changes in the relative percentages of sand and vegetated beaches between 1974 and 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many low-income urban areas are highly walkable by conventional measures such as population density or land use mix, chronic diseases related to lack of physical activity are more common among residents of these areas. Disparities in neighborhood conditions may make poor areas less attractive environments for walking, offsetting the advantages of density and land use mix. This study compared poor and nonpoor neighborhoods in New York City, using geographic information systems measures constructed from public data for US census tracts within New York City (N=2,172) as well as field observation of a matched-pair sample of 76 block faces on commercial streets in poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. Poor census tracts had significantly fewer street trees, landmarked buildings, clean streets, and sidewalk cafes, and higher rates of felony complaints, narcotics arrests, and vehicular crashes. The field observation showed similar results. Improving aesthetic and safety conditions in poor neighborhoods may help reduce disparities in physical activity among urban residents.Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S264–S285. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.47 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and pollutant emission changes can have significant impacts on air quality, regional climate, and human health. Here we describe a modeling study aimed at quantifying the potential effects of extensive changes in urban land cover in the New York City (NYC), USA metropolitan region on surface meteorology and ozone (O3) concentrations. The SLEUTH land-use change model was used to extrapolate urban land cover over this region from “present-day” (ca. 1990) conditions to a future year (ca. 2050), and these projections were subsequently integrated into meteorological and air quality simulations. The development of the future-year land-use scenario followed the narrative of the “A2” scenario described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but was restricted to the greater NYC area. The modeling system consists of the Penn State/NCAR MM5 mesoscale meteorological model; the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernal Emissions processing system; and the US EPA Community Multiscale Air Quality model, and simulations were performed for two 18-day episodes, one near-past and one future. Our results suggest that extensive urban growth in the NYC metropolitan area has the potential to increase afternoon near-surface temperatures by more than 0. 6°C and planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights by more than 150m, as well as decrease water vapor mixing ratio by more than 0. 6gkg−1, across the NYC metropolitan area, with the areal extent of all of these changes generally coinciding with the area of increased urbanization. On the other hand, the impacts of these land use changes on ozone concentrations are more complex. Simulation results indicate that future changes in urbanization, with emissions held constant, may lead to increases in episode-average O3 levels by about 1–5ppb, and episode-maximum 8h O3 levels by more than 6ppb across much of the NYC area. However, spatial patterns of ozone changes are heterogeneous and also indicate the presence of areas with decreasing ozone concentrations. When anthropogenic emissions were increased to be consistent with the extensive urbanization in the greater NYC area, the O3 levels increased in outer counties of the metropolitan region but decreased in others, including coastal Connecticut and the Long Island Sound area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Land use data are increasingly understood as important indicators of potential environmental health risk in urban areas where micro-scale or neighborhood level hazard exposure data are not routinely collected. This paper aims to offer a method for estimating the distribution of air toxics in urban neighborhoods using land use information because actual air monitoring data rarely exist at this scale. Using Geographic Information System spatial modeling tools, we estimate air toxics concentrations across neighborhoods in New York City and statistically compare our model with the US Environmental Protection Agency''s National Air Toxic Assessment and air monitoring data across three NYC neighborhoods. We conclude that land use data can act as a good proxy for estimating neighborhood scale air toxics, particularly in the absence of monitoring data. In addition, the paper suggests that land use data can expand the reach of environmental impact assessments that routinely exclude analyses of potential exposures to urban air toxics at the neighborhood scale. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses an 1877 legal case of eminent domain between the city of New York and Anna Bishop and her sons DeForest and Frank of the town of Olive, Esopus Valley in Catskills Mountains. The city acquired the land to build water reservoirs to supply the growing city of New York. According to the legal arguments of the city of New York, the Bishop's land had no value while according to the legal arguments of the Bishop family the land was everything to them.

The article reports on the ruling of the New York Supreme Court on the case, Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, that the economic impact of the regulation on the claimant and, particularly, the extent to which the regulation has interfered with distinct investment-backed expectations are, of course, relevant considerations. The Court established a three-part inquiry for determining when land use regulation goes too far and caused a taking private property in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court repeatedly indicated that the inquiry into investment-backed expectations, and especially the reasonableness of those expectations, goes far toward determining whether fairness requires the government to compensate for the effects of a land use regulation.

Deals with the variety of roles of the comprehensive plan for the Town of Ramapo, New York City in land use regulation. Discussion of the origin and effects of the Unitary approach and land use regulation; Examination of the changes made in the Unitary approach through state legislation; Union of the structural and procedural with the substantive elements of planning and land use regulation.

Focuses on the ruling of the New York City Appellate Court on the case regarding land use between Ruth Golden and the Planning Board of Town of Ramapo, New York City. Background for the adoption of the Ramapo ordinance; Description of other local inventions emanating from the Ramapo approach to smart growth; Reflection on the report 'Quiet Revolution,' prepared for the Council of Environmental Quality in 1971.

The article reports on a study about privately owned public spaces in New York City. "The New York City Privately Owned Public Space Project," aims to define and evaluate public spaces built under zoning provisions since 1961. The researchers identified 503 spaces at 320 buildings, and made field visits to evaluate the compliance of these spaces to their corresponding legal agreements. The project also made an assessment of the utility of the spaces. It was found out that only 16 percent of these have become significant neighborhood facilities and more than 40 percent were of little value. The research was published in the book "Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience." Photographs of these spaces and jury comments on the research were also discussed.

The location of noxious uses and the pollution they generate have ramifications for global public health and equity; these uses have been concentrated in the world's poorer places as well as in poorer places within more affluent countries. Planners, policymakers, and public health professionals must collaborate on a worldwide basis to address these equity, health, and land use planning problems. (Am d Public Health. 2001;91: 1033-1041) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of Free Exercise principles in resolving a religious land use dispute in New York City. Overview of Free Exercise jurisprudence; Problems with land use regulation; Facts and reasoning of the Second Circuit's rulings in the LeBlanc-Sternberg v. Fletcher controversy.

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted every facet of society. One of the non-pharmacological measures to contain the COVID-19 infection is social distancing. Federal, state, and local governments have placed multiple executive orders for human mobility reduction to slow down the spread of COVID-19. This paper uses geotagged tweets data to reveal the spatiotemporal human mobility patterns during this COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. With New York City open data, human mobility pattern changes were detected by different categories of land use, including residential, parks, transportation facilities, and workplaces. This study further compares human mobility patterns by land use types based on an open social media platform (Twitter) and the human mobility patterns revealed by Google Community Mobility Report cell phone location, indicating that in some applications, open-access social media data can generate similar results to private data. The results of this study can be further used for human mobility analysis and the battle against COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents a response on the comment concerning the authors' article on the estimation of agricultural use values of land in Columbia County, New York. The importance of the issue is underscored by the fact that more than 40 state legislatures provide for agricultural use-value assessment and that procedures for establishing use-value differ significantly among states. New York bases its use values on farmland sales information. However, states like California and New Jersey rely on some procedure for capitalizing the future stream of net returns to farmland. There is certainly no agreement among either practitioners or researchers as to which methods are most appropriate. The comment emphasizes the fundamental difference between an asset's value in use and in exchange. The possibilities for divergence between these two values provides the theoretical basis for the interest in preferential farmland assessment. An objective approach to establishing agricultural use values would be to observe them in a freely functioning land market devoid of any influences except those related to the value of land in agricultural production. The merits of market price as a reflection of resource value are recognized by most economists.

This section comments on the article about the estimation of agricultural use values of land in Columbia County, New York. Although, the article clearly demonstrates that there are conceptual and informational problems associated with generating use-value estimates, the reader is left with the impression that estimation of agricultural use values of land based on capitalized income values can be a procedure sufficiently objective to support or validate use-value estimates obtained through the market value approach. This note indicates a fundamental difference between use value and market value stressing the subjective nature of the use-value concept and, consequently, of all agricultural use-value estimates. It also emphasizes the fact that market or exchange values are objective phenomena determined through the market process. The implications of this comment are that use-value estimates based on capitalized income values are inherently highly arbitrary and not subject to objective measurement, and such estimates are unlikely to be useful in supporting market value estimates of use value. The problem of widely varying agricultural use-value estimates of similar land is endemic in all use-value estimation procedures.