GCPE & NYC-EJA Lecture Series: Community Planning and Re-Zoning Issues

What traction have communities gained in local land use decision-making? These will be discussed as well as successes on a local and state level. Discussion will include how communities resist, and how local initiatives and victories can be woven together to benefit local communities despite federal policies.

Community leaders and activists will discuss several controversial rezoning proposals for the
neighborhoods of:

Sunset Park (UPROSE speaker)
Lower East Side (Damaris Reyes, GOLES)
Inwood (Cheryl Pahaham, co-Chair of Inwood Legal Action and member of Northern Manhattan Is Not For Sale); and
City Councilmember Antonio Reynoso, who will discuss the Bushwick re-zoning and proposals to overhaul citizen participation and environmental impact rules, as well as the impact of proposed federal changes to environmental rules, community reinvestment requirements, and fair housing efforts.

Refreshments will be served.

Free and open to the public. RSVP to bbuford7@pratt.edu.

GCPE & NYC-EJA Lecture Series

Beyond Impeachment: The Role of Frontline Communities in Shaping Policy

2020 ushers in a new decade, one that inherits the problems of the past but also the promise of new beginnings. Will this decade bring change and progress in addressing the interwoven issues of climate change, community, housing, and health built upon a foundation of social, racial, economic and environmental justice?

Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment’s 2020 Spring Lecture Series lecture will highlight New York City and New York State successes in addressing housing, criminal justice and environmental issues within the context of the egregious roll back of federal housing, environmental, and health programs. Local policy achievements grew out of community-based, community-led efforts in partnership with allies in city- and statewide technical assistance and advocacy organizations. Discussion will focus on community successes, near misses, opportunities, and the challenges to advancing community-initiated policy on everything—from rezoning, to climate action, to impacts of climate change on the health and welfare of the community—that have direct impact on the health and quality of life for millions of working class New Yorkers, not to mention the health of the planet.

The lecture series is designed as a safe place to freely discuss and debate the implications of the Trump administration’s policies and what our response as urbanists, ecologists, environmentalists, and community-based activists should be. The objective of the forum is to offer insights into what’s needed to assure that principles of social, economic, and environmental justice are part of our professional responsibilities.

Other Lectures in this Series:

Friday, March 27, 2020
Recent NYS and NYC Housing and Climate Legislations

Friday, April 17, 2020
Infrastructure, Climate Change and Health