Rendering of modular construction at 581 Grant Avenue. Image Credit: Think! Architecture and Design/NYC HPD

The program will create studio to four bedroom homes for low income and formerly homeless individuals. On March 4, 2019, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) announced plans to develop 167 affordable units on City-owned land in East New York. The program is being developed by a team led by Thorobird Companies along with nonprofit partner Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services (BACDYS) and will have a unique modular design to hold the mixed-use development on City-owned land on the Grant Avenue Municipal lot located at 581 Grant Avenue in East New York. (read more…)

The “421-a Extended Affordability Program Rules” would provide a 10 to 15 year extension to eligible buildings enrolled in the program prior to its expiration. On March 14, 2016, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development proposed two agency rules to extend the 421-a real property tax exemption program for those who already had been benefiting from the program prior to its expiration in June 2015. The State authorized HPD to promulgate the new rules via State Law from June 26, 2015.

(read more…)

View of P.S. 109 pre-construction. Image credit: Artspace.

Former public school has been transformed into affordable housing complex for artists. Artspace P.S. 109 is a 90-unit affordable housing complex that formerly served as an underutilized school building located in 215 East 99^th Street in East Harlem, Manhattan. P.S 109 is an 1898 Gothic Revival-style structure that is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (read more…)

The City will renovate and restore 1871 building with eye toward casual restaurant. On February 21, 2012, Landmarks approved the City’s renovation plan for the landmarked Tavern on the Green restaurant on the west side of Central Park near West 65th Street. The Victorian Gothic building was built in 1871 as a sheepfold. It was converted into a restaurant in 1934. In 2009, the restaurant’s license holder filed for bankruptcy protection. The restaurant closed and its equipment and furnishings were auctioned. Tavern on the Green has remained vacant except for a temporary gift shop and public restroom. 

At the public hearing, the Parks Department’s Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Smith explained that the plan would reconfigure the space to make it more “Parkcentric.” Smith said the City was seeking a concessionaire to operate a casual restaurant in the building. Department of Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney noted that the City in 2010 demolished the restaurant’s “Crystal Room,” a glass-enclosed dining area on the park-side of the building built in 1976, and restored the restaurant’s courtyard. Burney said the proposal would reveal the building’s original facade by removing the extraneous additions built over the years. According to Burney, the “wound” left after removing the crystal room would be filled with an all-glass, transparent box facing the terrace. The proposal also included restoring the building’s facades, windows, and dormers to their 1934 conditions. (read more…)

New zoning district created to protect existing commercial uses will also facilitate private developer’s mixed-use project. On September 21, 2011, the City Council approved the Department of City Planning’s proposal to create the new M1- 6D manufacturing zoning district. The Council also approved an accompanying proposal by Edison Properties to apply the new M1-6D district to the mid-block portions of two blocks bounded by West 28th and West 30th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The rezoning will facilitate Edison Properties’ proposed two-building mixed-use project on a through-block lot at 249 West 28th Street.

Planning proposed creating the new M1-6D zoning district after Edison Properties expressed interest in redeveloping its property with a residential use prohibited by the area’s M1-5 zoning regulations.

The area was once part of the City’s industrial center and home to a thriving fur industry. Over the years, the area transitioned from manufacturing and production uses into commercial office uses. The rezoning area is characterized by parking lots and a lack of ground floor retail. Recent development in the area includes hotels lacking the setbacks and articulations of the remaining pre-war buildings. Planning proposed the M1-6D district to establish use and bulk regulations that would protect existing office and light industrial uses and encourage new development that would reflect the area’s architectural character.  (read more…)