With population at 464,573, Island's growth slows
Latest Census Bureau estimates show
losses in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx
Staten Island Advance - Thursday, March 16,
2006
WASHINGTON - Staten Island's population expansion
slowed last year, with 1,878 new residents bringing the total
population to 404,573. Still, the small increase bucked the trend of
population loss elsewhere in the city.
The Island registered a growth rate of .4 percent
between 2004 and July 1, 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's
latest annual county population estimates, which are based on birth
and death records, tax returns and other administrative data.
Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx showed population
losses of .4 percent to .5 percent. Manhattan's population
edged up .1 percent.
Staten Island ranked 16th in growth among the
state's 62 counties. The largest increase, 1.7 percent, was recorded
in Jefferson County, the home of Fort Drum, the state's largest
military base.
"We continue to be a faster-growing county in a
mostly stagnant state," Dr. Jonathan Peters, a professor of finance
at the College of Staten Island, said yesterday. But the Island has
fallen "behind the curve" in meeting the growth projections made for
it several years ago by the New York Metropolitan Transportation
Council, Peters added. "We were supposed to be at 470,000 by now,"
he said.
The number of Islanders increased 4.7 percent in the
first four years after the 2000 Census, which put the borough's
population at 443,728.
Borough President James Molinaro said Island growth
had "definitely slowed" in the past few years and attributed the
slackening in part to the 2003 rezoning plan approved by the City
Planning Commission to prevent developers from tearing down older
homes and replacing them with multiple dwellings.
"The results of the down-zoning are definitely
showing," Molinaro said. On a typical 3-acre development site, "you
once could build 55 homes and now you can build only 20," he noted.
Molinaro said city planning officials recently
confirmed to him that fewer single-family homes are under
construction on the Island than two years ago. But he predicted that
the apartment construction renaissance under way on the North Shore,
especially in St. George, would spur further growth.
"You can buy an apartment for $500 per square foot
in St. George," he said. "In Manhattan, it would cost you $1,000 a
square foot."
In addition, St. George "offers people a better view
than they can get in Manhattan, which is a view of Manhattan,"
Molinaro said.
He estimated that in St. George alone, over 18,000
new apartment units are either under construction or on the drawing
board.
While maintaining overall growth last year, the
Island continued to lose residents who were born in the borough or
moved here from other parts of the city and country, according to
the Census estimates.
In a trend that began in the 1990's, the Island saw
a net domestic outflow of 2,370 people in the year ending July 1,
2005, while 1,731 people moved here.
Molinaro suggested that the soaring cost of housing
in the borough over the past several years had made the Island less
of a magnet for folks wanting to move out of apartments in other
boroughs and buy homes here.
Peters ascribed the domestic outflow to longtime
Islanders of retirement age cashing in on the equity of the homes
they bought in the 1960s and 1970s and moving to lower-cost areas in
Florida and other southern states.
However, William Di Biasi, a Todt Hill real estate
broker and tax abatement specialist, said he has been seeing more
and more younger Islanders join the exodus.
The "Internet revolution" has made it easier for
people to pull up stakes, according to Di Biasi. "You can have your
entire business in your phone now," he said. "And as long as you
have a keyboard, you can do everything."
By Terence J. Kivlan
Reprinted here with permission
from the
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