Facility to provide housing for low-income mentally ill. City Council approved the Planning Commission’s resolution adopted on September 8, 2004, allowing the construction of a six-story building with 50 units for low-income persons with mental illnesses. The Council’s action authorized the designation of an Urban Development Action Area and the transfer of six properties of City-owned land.

The project site, which is to be developed under the New York State office of Mental Health, is located on the north side of East 123rd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues in East Harlem. The site is part of the Park Avenue Urban Renewal Plan and comprises six City-owned properties totaling 1 0,000 sq.ft. Currently, the site contains underutilized vacant land and a vacant one-story garage, which will be demolished. (more…)

BSA rejected owner’s site valuation and claim that buildings were of a “different era.” Sutphin Boulevard LLC, owner of three adjacent lots in a residential district totaling 24,649 sq. ft., sought to demolish four buildings housing auto-service and auto-storage space on one of its lots and construct a one-story 12,005-square-foot retail building spanning the three lots. The site, at Sutphin Boulevard and I I It h Avenue in Queens, has contained an auto-service station since 1 93 1 under a City approval that BSA extended until 1 980. Since 1980, the service station has operated without approval.

In its variance application, Sutphin argued that the existing buildings were obsolete and demolition and remediation costs made as-of-right residential construction cost-prohibitive. Sutphin also claimed that a hardship existed because the residentially-zoned site contained a use prohibited under the current zoning. (more…)

Developer planned a 19-story dormitory building without an existing school affiliation. BSA denied developer Gregg Singer’s appeal from a Department of Buildings determination rejecting Singer’s application to build a 1 9- story, 222-unit student dormitory building on the site of former P.S. 64, located at 609 East 9th Street in the East Village. Singer had acquired the five-story, former elementary school from the City for $3.15 million at a 1 998 auction. The existing building served as a school until the 1970’s, after which it housed the CHARAS/EI Bohio community center. The auction sparked three years of litigation through which CHARAS tried, but failed to regain control of the property

The property is located in a residential zoning district (R7-2) and is subject to a deed restriction limiting it to community facility use. Singer applied to Buildings to construct a student dormitory, a permitted community facility use, but Buildings denied his application on March 21, 2005 based on Singer’s failure to submit enough information to establish “an institutional nexus;” a showing that required an educational institution to have some control over the property evidenced by a deed or lease. Buildings required an institutional nexus to distinguish the intended student dormitory use, which is entitled to a floor area bonus up to a 6.5 FAR, from other types of housing that are restricted to an FAR of 3.44. (more…)

Council angered by allegation that rezoning will impede affordable housing construction. The full Council approved three linked proposals to eliminate commercial zoning overlays in 21 areas of Staten Island after a public hearing where a Staten Island architect alleged that the actions would impede affordable housing development.

The October 6, 2005 hearing before the Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises became heated when a Staten Island architect, who first testified that a block on Wyman Avenue should retain its commercial zoning, cautioned the Council that its efforts to downzone Staten Island could ultimately prove exclusionary for low-income families. Calling his comment an “insult” and “disgusting,” Council Member Andrew J. Lanza told the architect that “not a single stick of affordable housing has been built in Staten Island” and commented that the rezonings had been thoughtfully planned. “You know how much affordable housing will be built in Staten Island: zero,” Lanza told the architect. When the architect began to explain that he was currently working on a multi-family project aimed at first-time home buyers, Council Member Tony Avella, the Subcommittee Chair, told the architect that he was cutting him off.

Additional opposition testimony came from a property owner with a site that had contained an oil and heating company since 1 963. He asked that his site be carved out of the rezoning to allow it to maintain its commercial zoning.

Closing public testimony, Council Member Lanza recommended that the lot containing the heating and oil company be removed from the rezoning and that no other modifications be supported. The Subcommittee approved the three actions, adopting Lanza’s modification. The Land Use Committee and full Council approved.

The approved rezoning eliminated commercial overlays on blocks determined by the Planning Department to be primarily residential in nature. With the removal of the commercial zoning, a loophole was removed that had allowed developers to build large as-of-right residential developments in lower density areas. For the full ULURP process, see 2 City Land 138 {Oct. 15, 2005.)

Council: Staten Island Commercial Overlay Rezoning (October 1 1 and October 27, 2005) ; Staten Island Commercial Overlay Rezoning (C 050453 ZMR), (C 050454 ZMR) , (C 050455 ZMR) (September 1 4, 2005) . CITYADMIN

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…)