Opponents raise congestion, asthma levels, and City policy as reasons to reduce parking garage. Despite calls by Hell’s Kitchen residents and Community Board 4 to reduce the requested parking spaces, the Land Use Committee sent the 400-space public parking garage plan of developer Glenwood Management Corp. to the full Council for a vote.

Glenwood applied for a special permit for the garage as part of its construction plan for a mixed-use building with 569 residential units and 10,600 sq.ft. of retail space at 310-328 West 38th Street, a site that currently contains a two-story parking garage and a parking lot with a total of 590 spaces. Of the 400 spaces proposed, the project permitted 232 accessory spaces as-of-right. The project will take advantage of the Hudson Yards Inclusionary Housing bonus, increasing its floor area with an agreement to make 140 units affordable. Glenwood also sought a related text amendment to allow the design to include recessed entries along West 37th and West 38th Streets.

When it approved the special permit in early June, the City Planning Commission required Glenwood to restrict use of the 232 accessory spaces to monthly users. The full City Council then voted to take review of the permit since its review was not automatic under ULURP.

At the June 17th hearing before the Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning & Franchises, opponents requested that the Council limit the number of spaces to the 232 accessory spaces. Community Board 4’s representative explained that it could not support any project that encouraged non-residents to come to the site by car. A resident called it “irrational” to approve parking in an area with one of the highest rates of asthma in the city.

In response, Council Member Helen Sears told opponents that Glenwood’s reduction from the current 590 spaces to the 400 proposed was “quite a compromise.” She added that every neighborhood has people with asthma and that City Planning had done everything it needed to do in relation to the permit approval.

Council Member Eric Gioia asked for a more detailed explanation from the Planning Commission on its rational for approval. Subcommittee Chair Tony Avella laid over the vote to June 25th to allow the Department of City Planning to respond.

On June 25th when the matter returned to the subcommittee, it approved without modification, sending the matter to the Land Use Committee, which also approved.

ULURP Process
Lead Agency: CPC,Neg.Dec.
Comm.Bd.: MN 4,No, 35-1-0
Boro.Pres.: App’d
CPC: App’d, 12-0-0
Land Use Comm.: App’d

Hearing: 310-328 West 38th Street (June 25, 2008) (Gary R. Tarnoff, Kramer Levin, for Glenwood).

Planned parkland shrinks; developers get more opportunities for enclosed amusements. On April 17, 2008, the City revised its comprehensive plan to redevelop a 47-acre area of the Coney Island peninsula, after holding its public scoping meeting two months earlier.

Initiated by the Department of City Planning and the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the plan covers 19 blocks of the neighborhood, stretching from the New York Aquarium to West 24th Street, and from Mermaid Avenue to the boardwalk. The rezoning is designed to transform the iconic beachfront amusement area into an affordable, year-round urban amusement and entertainment destination alongside a concentration of new residential and retail uses. (more…)

City Council approved rezoning despite Council Member Tony Avella’s objection. On February 27, 2008, the City Council approved developer Martin Wydra’s rezoning and special permit proposal to build an eight-story mixed-use building and a 259space parking garage at 886 Dahill Road in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Currently, one- and two-story vacant industrial buildings occupy the 66,000-square-foot site, which is located on Dahill Road between 50th Street and Avenue I. The proposal would rezone the site from an M1-1 and R5 designation to a C4-5X.

The Planning Commission held a public hearing on Wydra’s proposal in December 2007. State Assemblyman James F. Brennan and Council Member Simcha Felder, both of whom represent Borough Park residents, supported Wydra and claimed that the proposal would provide the area with desperately needed housing. Local residents, however, testified against the proposal, criticizing it for what they saw as the building’s out-of-context height and adverse effect on traffic and congestion. The Commission approved the proposal on January 28, 2008, but not without modifying it to address the residents’ concerns. The Commission also required Wydra to work with the Department of Transportation on traffic mitigation measures. (more…)

Site will be one of first parcels developed after major rezoning. The New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a request for proposals seeking a developer to purchase a 45,000-square-foot City-owned site in downtown Jamaica and develop it into a mixed-use building with retail space, housing, and parking. A two-story parking garage partially used by the NYPD currently occupies the site, which is part of the Special Downtown Jamaica District from Jamaica Avenue to 93rd Avenue, between 169th and 168th Streets.

The City approved the site for sale and rezoned it to accommodate retail, service and residential uses under the Jamaica Plan, one of the largest rezonings in the City’s history. 4 CityLand 117 (Sept. 15, 2007). (more…)

Citing a need for jobs, Council rejects proposal to rezone manufacturing site for 49 new housing units. On October 27,2005, the City Council overturned the Planning Commission’s approval of an application to rezone a vacant, 19,680-square foot site from manufacturing to residential to facilitate the development of 49 units of housing in Bedford -Stuyvesant.

The applicant, Middleland Inc., argued at the hearing before the Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises that the site was unique. It was surrounded by residential uses and had been residentially- zoned until 1975, when it was rezoned for use as a parking lot for IBM’s adjacent factory. A declaration restricting its use to parking for IBM remains recorded on the property. Since IBM closed the factory in 1 993, the site has remained fenced and vacant. Middleland planned to construct seven separate buildings on the site with seven units in each building. (more…)