Rendering of Greenpoint Landing Development. Image Credit: Handel Architects.

Large Greenpoint Developments, if approved, would produce over 1,400 housing units. On October 30, 2013, the City Planning Commission unanimously voted to approve two major mixed-use developments in Greenpoint, Brooklyn: Greenpoint Landing and 77 Commercial Street. Both projects would allow the City to fulfill commitments to affordable housing and public open space that it made during the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning. The 2005 Rezoning of nearly 200 blocks authorized the transformation of Greenpoint’s low-density manufacturing sector along the waterfront north of the Williamsburg Bridge into a strip of high-density residential towers of mixed use-residential space. (more…)

Photo of Congregation Ohel Chabad Lubavitch-owned property located at 226-10 Francis Lewis Boulevard, Queens. Image Courtesy of Abba Refson.

BSA approval contingent upon several conditions, and restrictions of the hours of operation and access to gravesites. The Congregation Ohel Chabad Lubavitch owns the property at 226-10 Francis Lewis Boulevard, Queens adjacent to the Montefiore Cemetery where the Lubavitch spiritual leader Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson and his predecessor Rebbe Yosef J. Schneerson are buried. Daily visitors numbering in the several hundreds use the property to access the graves of the Lubavitch leaders.  In 1994 the Congregation purchased the property which comprises five adjacent buildings used by the visitors as a synagogue sanctuary and 24-hour per day access point to the gravesite.

The Congregation applied to the Board of Standards and Appeals for a variance to allow it to legalize and enlarge a synagogue and accessory uses at the property, and to waive the FAR, lot coverage, yard, and parking requirements. The Congregation’s initial application proposed to merge the five homes and legalize the operation of the synagogue and visitor’s center, while also providing accessory uses to visitors including synagogue services, prayer space, and a Shabbos house with overnight transient sleeping accommodations. The Congregation also proposed to connect the cellar, first story, and second story of the five homes, thereby increasing the FAR and lot coverage, and decreasing rear and side yards and parking space requirements, contrary to the existing R2A zoning regulations. (more…)

Ross Sandler

The Bloomberg administration will be remembered for, among other initiatives, a major reallocation of public street space for new and innovative uses. Cars and trucks have been joined by a host of new users, most recently by the long anticipated bike share program. Citibike is a worthy experiment.

The City’s Department of Transportation chased vehicular traffic from portions of Times Square, Herald Square and Madison Square and rededicated the space to movable chairs, tables and planters. Formerly clogged streets now serve as parks for sitters, walkers, lunch time breaks and urban star gazing. Along First Avenue, Second Avenue and other thoroughfares, DOT has seized entire lanes and pushed the parking lane away from the curb and out into the street. It then dedicated the former parking lanes to bicycles. These two shifts – pavement parks and protected bike lanes – constitute the largest shift of street space away from motorized vehicles since New York City started paving streets with asphalt.

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Parking in Manhattan is a controversial subject. The Department of City Planning weighed in on the topic when, in December 2011, it released a study of parking within Manhattan’s core business districts. City Planning reported that there are fewer off-street parking spaces than there were years ago. In 1978 the Manhattan core had 127,000 off-street public parking spaces; in 2010 there were only 103,000.

The reduction in spaces resulted in part from environmental policies that I was involved with as a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. In 1975 the City was not in compliance with the federal carbon monoxide standards, and I served as co-counsel in a Clean Air Act litigation against the City. The Beame Administration in 1977 settled the case by limiting the right to construct off-street garages, and by removing parking meters from midtown, actions which led to the City’s 1982 parking rules. Under these rules acres of surface lots disappeared, as for example, along Sixth Avenue in the twenties. (more…)

Image: NYCEDC

Municipal parking lot would be replaced with multi-building development offering market-rate and affordable housing and 1.5 acres of open space. On June 23, 2010, the City Planning Commission approved two separate but related proposals that would facilitate the redevelopment of a 5.5-acre, 1,101-space municipal parking lot bounded by 37th and 39th Avenues and Union and 138th Streets in downtown Flushing, Queens. The Commission approved the City Economic Development Corporation, Rockefeller Group Development Corporation, and TDC Development Corporation’s proposal to build a 1.89 million sq.ft. mixed-use project, known as Flushing Commons, on the parking lot. The Commission also approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s proposal to allow the Macedonia AME Church to build an affordable housing project, known separately as Macedonia Plaza, on a portion of the lot not set aside for the Flushing Commons project.

In 2004, the City’s Downtown Flushing Task Force targeted the 5.5- acre municipal lot for redevelopment. After a formal RFP process in June 2005, EDC selected Rockefeller and TDC to redevelop the lot. The proposal would include replacing the lot with a five-building complex, ranging in height from five to seventeen stories, surrounding 1.5 acres of publicly accessible open space. The project would provide 620 units of market rate housing, 405,000 sq.ft. of commercial space, a YMCA, and a 1,600-space underground garage. (more…)