Credit: The Department of City Planning

City Planning Commission certified 140-block Bed-Stuy North Rezoning and 90-block West Harlem Rezoning: included in the Brooklyn proposal is a text amendment that would also apply Citywide and to areas of the Bronx. At City Planning Commission’s review session on May 7, 2012, the Commission certified the Department of City Planning’s contextual rezoning proposal for the northern half of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The Bedford-Stuyvesant North Rezoning plan would impact a 140-block area generally bounded by Flushing Avenue to the north, Quincy Street to the south, Broadway to the east, and Classon and Franklin Avenues to the west. The proposal was requested by Brooklyn Community Board 3 and local elected officials after the City rezoned the southern half of the neighborhood in 2007. (read CityLand’s coverage here).

Bedford-Stuyvesant is a residential neighborhood characterized by late 19th- and early 20th-century rowhouses, small and medium-sized apartment buildings, and several large, tower-in-the-park NYCHA (more…)

Two-building project will include market-rate condominiums on West 116th Street and an affordable rental building on West 117th Street. On August 17, 2011, the City Council approved L+M Development Partners Inc.’s proposal to develop two mixed-use buildings on a through block lot between West 117th and West 116th Streets, in the block between Fifth Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem. The midblock project will be developed on a lot currently used by an adjacent building as a parking lot and a basketball court. L+M requested a rezoning to facilitate the construction of a twelve-story condominium building fronting West 116th Street and a nine-story affordable housing building fronting West 117th Street.  (more…)

Two-building project would include affordable rental building and market- rate condominium building. On July 13, 2011, the City Planning Commission heard testimony on L+M Development Partners Inc.’s proposed 266,500 sq.ft. mixed-use project for a through-block lot on the north side of West 116th Street between Malcolm X Boulevard and Fifth Avenue in Harlem. The midblock project site is occupied by a basketball court and a parking lot. L+M plans to redevelop the site with a twelve-story market-rate condominium building fronting West 116th Street and a nine-story affordable rental building fronting West 117th Street.

The eastern portion of West 116th Street, including the project site, is zoned R7-2. The rest of the block to the west is zoned C4-5X. To facilitate the development, L+M requested that the C4-5X district be extended east to include the entire block. The rezoning area includes a Baptist church and two mid-rise residential buildings.  (more…)

NYCHA proposal would restore West 129th Street in the St. Nicholas Houses as part of Harlem Children’s Zone’s charter school plan. On March 30, 2011, the City Planning Commission approved the New York City Housing Authority’s proposal to re-connect West 129th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. The City in the 1950s closed a portion of West 129th Street by creating a cul-de-sac between Frederick Douglas Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard to facilitate the development of NYCHA’s fourteen-acre St. Nicholas Houses apartment complex. The cul-de-sac intersects with Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and provides access to the tower-in-the-park housing development.

NYCHA requested that the City eliminate the cul-de-sac and reestablish West 129th Street as a through street as part of Harlem Children’s Zone’s plan to  build a 1,300-seat charter school. Harlem Children’s Zone has already broken ground on the five-story school, known as Promise Academy, on land northwest of the cul-de-sac. The school is scheduled to be completed by the 2012 school year. Rather than following the City’s land  use review process, NYCHA, as a state authority, was required by federal law to follow the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s public review requirements in order to transfer its land to Harlem Children’s Zone. (more…)

Partitioned Metropolitan Opera warehouse on West 129th Street in Manhattan. Photo: CityLand.

Stringer opposed, arguing that the proposal conflicted with the City’s broader efforts to rezone the West Harlem area. The City Council approved West 129th Street Realty LLC’s plan to rezone one block in West Harlem from R7-2 and M1-1 to R7A. The block is bounded by West 130th and West 129th Streets, and Convent and Amsterdam Avenues. The block’s eastern and western portions along Convent and Amsterdam Avenues are developed with four- and five-story apartment buildings and were previously zoned R7-2. The mid-block portion is developed with a one-story warehouse and a two-story parking garage and was zoned M1-1. The developer owns a 20,000 sq.ft. portion of the warehouse site, which is slated for redevelopment.

In 2005, the developer purchased the eastern two-thirds of the former storage warehouse used by the Metropolitan Opera at 497 West 129th Street, which it then partitioned. The site’s M1-1 zoning prohibited residential uses, and the developer requested the rezoning to facilitate the development of two residential buildings, one eight stories and the second nine. The two buildings will be connected by an interior courtyard, with the eight-story building fronting West 129th Street, and the nine-story building fronting West 130th Street. The project will create approximately 90 rental units and 65 accessory parking spaces. The Metropolitan Opera will continue to use its portion of the warehouse for storage. (more…)