Department of City Planning311Search all NYC.gov websites
Southern Boulevard Neighborhood Study
Throughout the conversations held in the three-year planning process, community members voiced many concerns, values, and ideas. Read a summary of the key issues and priorities we heard from the community here, including everything from the high costs of housing and gentrification and displacement fears to safety to the needs for the area's young people.
Community Vision
The neighborhoods along Southern Boulevard are made up of strong, culturally-rich communities with people of all ages and backgrounds. All enjoy equitable access to resources and opportunities that maximize a high quality of life. The neighborhoods’ history and cultural roots are celebrated, and the community is healthy, safe, and connected.
Goals and Objectives to Reach the Vision
- Preserve and invest in existing community assets
- Address longstanding health and economic inequities in the community by focusing on root causes
- Ensure that this is a great place for young people to grow up and for seniors to age in place
- Connect people to each other, resources, opportunities, and assets
To advance these goals, the City and Southern Boulevard community identified a set of actionable objectives across five themes: housing, jobs and business, parks, streets and public space, community resources and health, and land use.
Use the dropdown menus to read each objective or explore our illustrated goals and objectives to see how they all come together.
- Preserve existing housing affordability for the Southern Boulevard study area’s current residents
- Protect residents from harassment by holding landlords accountable and increasing awareness of tenant rights and resources
- Prevent and combat inequitable health outcomes related to poor housing quality
- Promote the creation of housing, affordable to all income levels
- Make it easier for people of all backgrounds to access housing resources and successfully apply for affordable housing
- Support low- and moderate-income homeowners and expand home ownership opportunities
- Support local economic growth through housing development
Pandemic Lens: As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, what are some questions to ask about how we could think about these objectives differently?
- How has lost employment created new or worse housing challenges for area renters and homeowners?
- What new housing challenges has the pandemic caused or exacerbated?
- Promote training and job readiness opportunities for in-demand and growing industries
- Strengthen and support local businesses
- Foster a strong business environment that can attract diverse retailers to serve the needs of the community
- Support welcoming and safe commercial corridors for local shoppers on Southern Boulevard, Westchester Avenue, and 174th Street
Pandemic Lens: As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, what are some questions to ask about how we could think about these objectives differently?
- How can small businesses be connected to the information and resources they need to recover, adapt, and thrive?
- What new jobs and opportunities will arise and how can residents be connected to and prepared for them?
- Make the street network safer for all users
- Improve connections to local assets including parks and the Bronx River
- Improve existing public spaces and parks in the community, increasing green space where possible
- Ensure public spaces and parks are flexible to accommodate multiple uses for a range of ages and abilities
- Better maintain streets, sidewalks, parks, and other public spaces
Pandemic Lens: As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, what are some questions to ask about how we could think about these objectives differently?
- How has the use of streets and access to open space changed in importance because of the pandemic?
- How can public spaces help residents achieve better health and quality of life?
- Increase awareness of existing health care and social services
- Make healthy food options available
- Promote community health and wellness by increasing access to health services and spaces for physical activity
- Promote safety measures to discourage crime and support a safe community
- Prevent incarceration and provide support for those returning from incarceration
- Create a greener, cleaner, safer environment
- Support local education needs and make educational, recreational, and engaging programming available for all ages
- Highlight local history, the arts, and culture
Pandemic Lens: As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, what are some questions to ask about how we could think about these objectives differently?
- What are the new health challenges for those recovering from COVID-19?
- What additional programming and other resources will be needed to make up for the disruption in education caused by the pandemic?
- Promote the creation of housing, affordable to all income levels
- Create new opportunities for housing near transit and along major corridors
- Support Southern Boulevard as a continuous commercial spine of the neighborhoods that surround it
- Reconnect the community to the Bronx River, ensuring that the waterfront is welcoming and accessible to all, human-scaled, and respectful of the river’s character
- Respect the context of the lower scale residential areas
Pandemic Lens: As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, what are some questions to ask about how we could think about these objectives differently?
- How can land use encourage the open space and building design needs that the pandemic illuminated?
- How can land use support new development that meets the housing and service needs in the community?
Land Use Vision
Through past planning processes including this one, the community has established a number of broad goals and priorities. One way to achieve those goals could be through changes to land use and the zoning that guides it. More than 80% of the zoning districts in the area have not been re-evaluated or changed since the passage of the Zoning Resolution in 1961.
The land use vision map displays a long-term vision of the study area, including areas of growth, major corridors, and connections to transit and parks. This may serve as a guide for shaping future land use conversations.
Illustrative Goals and Objectives
These illustrations show potential visions for the neighborhoods surrounding Southern Boulevard. They capture how the goals and objectives are interconnected and could be achieved. The locations selected are for imaginative purposes only.
Click or tap on the labels for a description of each objective.
Goal 1: Preserve and invest in existing community assets
The communities along Southern Boulevard are rich with existing assets of culture, art, architecture, parks, institutions, local businesses, and most importantly, its people. Throughout the process, community members made it clear that these important facets of their communities not only should be protected but invested in to ensure that current and future generations can take part in them.
Goal 2: Address longstanding health and economic inequities in the community by focusing on root causes
The communities along Southern Boulevard have long been affected by health and economic inequities due to institutionally racist policies such as the federal mortgage lending practice of redlining, highway construction, disinvestment, and stop-and-frisk policing. Community members emphasized how poor health and economic outcomes affect their daily lives and how solutions that get at the root of the issue could go a long way in addressing these inequities.
Goal 3: Ensure that this is a great place for young people to grow up and for seniors to age in place
The communities along Southern Boulevard have a very young population (almost 40% of residents are under the age of 25) and current residents hope that as they become adults, there are ample opportunities to make the neighborhood their home. At the same time, many want to ensure that seniors are able to stay in the community with all of the resources they need to age in place.
Goal 4: Connect people to each other, resources, opportunities, and assets
The communities along Southern Boulevard have many assets from parks, to transit, organizations, resources, people, culture, and so much more. However, community members continued to highlight throughout the planning process how hard it can be often be for many to access these places, resources, and opportunities.
