Testimony to NYC City Council Redistricting Committee, June 27, 2022

Hi, I’m Paul Graziano. I’ve heard my name a few times today. I wasn’t expecting that. I’m an urban planner. I
live in North Flushing Queens, where I’ve lived my entire life, and I presented the Queens Civic Congress
proposal for the borough.

Now, it has been mentioned several times. I didn’t bring it up a month ago at the initial meeting. I have just
submitted a slight revision and correction because there was a mistake that needed to be fixed and that was
done.

But, you know, one of the things that I want to mention is the Queens Civic Congress represents dozens of civic
and homeowner organizations, and we have other groups like the Eastern Queens Alliance who are allied with
us on this, and other organizations as well, representing well over a quarter of a million of the people who live
in the borough.

We are of every ethnicity, every stripe that you can imagine. And it’s always a little disconcerting when I hear
discussion that solely focuses on one of the six or seven indices that make up the redistricting process in the
City in particular, and this happened a decade ago as well.

One of the things I want to remind the public and some of the folks who have spoken today is that we are in a
somewhat unique situation in Queens. Because out of the 14 districts that are in Queens, only in Queens, not
including District 34, which is split between Queens and Brooklyn, we are – seven of those 14 districts are
under, under the minimum population and only two are over the maximum population.

And so, we have a limited ability, unless you wholesale, wholesale change these districts. And when I say
“wholesale,” I mean, you would have to completely rewrite the entire map. There is no way to satisfy some of
the requests that are being made, and frankly, they shouldn’t be. And I’ll give an example of Mr. Park who just
spoke previously.

I live in North Flushing, which is a single-family zone neighborhood. Two blocks south of me is a high-density
apartment area, that area is in District 20. The low-density single-family area is in District 19. District 19 is a
primarily single-family and two-family detached area. In fact, we have the highest concentration of single-
family zoning in the City of New York.

Our district is 843 people below the minimum that is allowed, and District 20 is 3,227 people above the
minimum, so they’re within the range that they’re supposed to be. The problem is the other districts
surrounding District 20 are 2,697 below the minimum, that’s District 24, which is Kew Gardens Hills, Jamaica
Estates, et cetera. And District 23, which is Glen Oaks, Bayside Hills, et cetera, that area is 8,00 under the
minimum.

So, what I have done – and I think some of the people who have spoken, and you’ll be receiving additional
testimony from our allied groups – is to do this in a way that keeps our communities together, as they have
been, based on our zoning, our civic areas, and where it makes sense to shift populations of like interest.

And we did that, for example, for District 23, where we removed a portion of what’s called the Hillside
Corridor, which is substantially South Asian, and remove it from District 27 to District 23 because District 27
has enough population to shift that.

So, again, I hope you will look at the Queens Civic Congress proposal. This has been vetted by literally dozens
of organizations, and we all believe that this is the way to go to do the least damage to our long-standing
 Testimony to NYC City Council Redistricting Committee, June 27, 2022

districts of interests, which include, not just demographics, but hard boundaries, civic associations, zoning, and
other characteristics. So, I thank you for this and I really appreciate your time. Thank you.