Auburndale Is Ignored
To The Editor:

On Tuesday, February 19, at 7:30 p.m., the Auburndale Improvement Association, Inc., will be holding its monthly meeting at the Reception House, located at 167-17 Northern Blvd., Flushing. The main topic for discussion will be contextual rezoning for the Auburndale community. Queens Director of City Planning John Young has accepted an invitation to attend this meeting and a very large turnout of the organization's membership is expected that night.

The rezoning of the Auburndale community has been postponed over and over again over the last three years despite promises from City Planning that the community's turn would be next. At the Zoning Task Force meeting at Borough Hall in December, Auburndale was among the communities last on Young's list to be rezoned in Queens County. Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, at her State of the Borough speech in January, did not even mention Auburndale when she spoke of upcoming rezonings. This indicates to the Auburndale Improvement Association that Auburndale's rezoning may be years away from completion, if at all.

The residents of Auburndale are tired of being put off and ignored in their desire to be rezoned. The Auburndale Improvement Association has sent hundreds of letters from community residents to Amanda Burden, director of the City Planning Commission, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other elected officials calling for rezoning in Auburndale. Since other communities around Auburndale have been rezoned, the community has been the target of those who choose to take advantage of the inappropriate zoning. This can not continue. This cannot be tolerated.

Overdevelopment and inappropriate development are major problems in Auburndale and other communities across the city. Contextual rezoning is one tool that helps mitigate those problems. The character of the Auburndale community must be preserved with the help of contextual rezoning before that character is totally destroyed.

All members of the press are invited to attend the meeting on February 19. Henry Euler Zoning and Housing Chair Auburndale Improvement Assoc., Inc.