Thank you, Councilman Cohen

To the editor:

Community Board 8 and the members of our community owe a deep debt of gratitude to Councilman Andrew Cohen for his forthright and effective efforts to preserve the Riverdale Special Natural Area District zoning, land use and environmental protection regulations.

Andy had the courage to stand up to the attempts to repeal SNAD and replace it with a proposal that was far less supportive of environmental and preservationists concerns, and which would have deprived the residents of this community of one of their last vestiges of participatory democracy.

Through his efforts, the city planning department and the City Planning Commission were persuaded to withdraw their proposal, and thus end a multi-year debate. We thank him.

Together with Councilman Cohen, Community Board 8 will now resume its longstanding efforts to strengthen and make more accommodative SNAD’s zoning, environmental and preservationist protections.

Thank you, Councilman Cohen, from a very grateful community.

Rosemary Ginty, Laura Spalter, Lisa Daub, Rosalind Zavras

The authors are officers for Community Board 8.

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