Developer claims proposed 140 units needed to meet funding requirements. The Doe Fund, Inc., a not-for- profit that provides job training and housing for New York City homeless, applied to BSA to construct two affordable housing projects on Webster Avenue in the Bronx. The lots’ commercial zoning prohibited residential development, triggering the need for a variance.

Under the Doe Fund’s plan, the eight-story 41,114-square-foot building proposed for 3349 Webster Avenue would contain 84 single-room occupancy units for seniors. At 3365 Webster Avenue, a second, eight-story 52,306-square-foot building with 56 units would target formerly homeless families. (more…)

Plan for seven buildings includes Boricua College campus, 679 residential units and over 36,000 sq.ft. of retail. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development proposed to amend the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Area Plan in the Bronx to facilitate a large, seven building, mixed-use, residential and commercial complex called Boricua Village to be constructed on a 4.2-acre lot in the northeast corner of Melrose Commons.

HPD’s plan called for 18 changes to the existing Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Plan, which the City adopted in 1994 to encourage development in a 34- block area of the Bronx, roughly stretching from East 163rd Street to East 156th Street between St. Ann’s and Third Avenues to Melrose and Courtlandt Avenues. The amendments included changes in land use designations and the elimination of height limits, lot coverage requirements, street wall coverage provisions, and curb cut restrictions. HPD’s proposal also called for the rezoning of the entire 4.2-acre site to R8 with a C2-4 overlay to allow a higher residential floor area, and the disposition of 42 City-owned lots. (more…)

Rezoning encompasses unique residential co-op on Bronx waterfront. Responding to concerns over increasing out-of-scale development, City Planning initiated rezoning studies of Harding Park, Clason Point and Park Stratton in the Bronx, ultimately proposing to rezone 47 blocks.

Under the proposal, 34 blocks of Harding Park and Clason Point, located along the peninsula bounded by the Bronx River to the west, the East River to the south and Pugsley’s Creek to the east, would be rezoned to generally reduce the minimum lot size, further restrict building heights and prohibit multifamily housing. Both neighborhoods consist of low density oneand two-family homes. Harding Park originated as a campground that summer residents converted to year-round homes during the housing shortage following World War II. Its residents later fought with the state and the City to remain, ultimately forming a co-op to purchase the land from the City. It is still characterized by narrow, unmapped streets, and some original bungalows remain. Parks controls a 1.1 acre portion of its waterfront. (more…)

Community claimed the FEIS flawed, the project was a nuisance and a Bronx facility would be more economical. In June 2005, Sanitation obtained final City approval for construction of a marine transfer station on the site of an inactive waste transfer station at East 91st Street and the East River. The approval was part of a citywide proposal to make each borough responsible for the export of its own waste. Sanitation’s proposal to reactivate the site, which it closed in 1999, faced severe opposition and the City Council voted it down, forcing Mayor Bloomberg to veto the denial. 2 CityLand 86 (July 15, 2005); 2 CityLand 52 (May 15, 2006).

Local residents, business owners and ACORN, a national community organization, challenged the City’s approval, alleging that the City illegally segmented the environmental review by not studying impacts on final freight destinations, failed to consider the transfer station’s impacts when operating at maximum capacity within the FEIS, and clashed with the City’s own policies to create a residential district around East 91st Street. The residents also alleged that the marine transfer station’s noise, odor and air pollution impacts would create a public and private nuisance. The residents argued that, if the City relaxed its policy of making each borough self-reliant, it would be more economical to use an existing truck-to-rail waste transfer station operated by a private company in the Bronx. (more…)

75-block rezoning protects low density in some areas, but increases density in others. On July 19, 2006, the City Council approved City Planning’s rezoning proposal for portions of Pelham Parkway and Indian Village, two northeastern Bronx communities characterized by low density residential development. The proposal will reduce the permitted density of development on 67 blocks and increase the permitted density of residential construction on eight blocks along Williamsbridge Road and Pelham Parkway South. 3 CityLand 91 (July 15, 2006).

At the July 17, 2006 hearing before Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning & Franchises, City Planning’s Purnima Kapur, director of the Bronx office, spoke about the controversial up-zoning to an R5D district along Williamsbridge Road. The rezoning would allow all types of residential development, but restrict the scale of development by setting a 40-foot height limit and restrictive parking requirements. Subcommittee Chair Tony Avella criticized Kapur for showing a diagram of potential development in the R5D zone that he believed rested on “assumptions” rather than realistic development schemes and called the diagram “unprofessional given the controversy that exists.” (more…)