High Line/Chelsea Rezoning Gets Go Ahead

Rezoning crafted to transform High Line into elevated open space; no mandatory affordable housing requirement set, despite community’s request. On June 23, 2005, the City Council approved the complicated rezoning and land acquisition plan for West Chelsea that has as its central goal the transformation of the High Line, an elevated rail line, into a 1.45-mile open space.

The approved rezoning impacts the area between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues from West 17th to West 30th … <Read More>


Council approves two new high schools

Each school to accommodate over 1,600 students. On May 25, 2005, the City Council approved the New York City School Construction Authority’s proposals for the construction of two new schools: a high school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and an intermediate and high school facility in Heartland Village, Staten Island. Student occupancy of both schools is expected to begin in September of 2008.

Sunset Park High School will be located at 932 4th Avenue and 156 … <Read More>


Marine transfer stations cause controversy

Residents of Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Bensonhurst vigorously opposed Sanitation’s proposed sites. Sanitation sought site selection approval to construct four 90,000- square-foot, three-story marine transfer stations on sites formerly used as waste transfer stations or garbage incinerators. In Manhattan, Sanitation sought to reuse the site at East 91st Street and the East River, which had contained a waste transfer station until 1999. In Brooklyn, sites at Shore Parkway in Bensonhurst and at Hamilton Avenue … <Read More>


Anticipated Rezoning Approved with Changes

Affordable housing incentives, as well as height, massing and manufacturing zones, revised before approval. Over the disapproval votes of Commissioners Karen Phillips and Dolly Williams, the remaining members of the Planning Commission approved the rezoning of a two-mile area along the East River waterfront in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods after modifications were crafted to address public officials and residents’ comments.

The six linked applications, including text, map and City map amendments to create park … <Read More>


Suit filed challenging Ikea’s approval

Suit claims environmental study was flawed and Council’s approval violated City land use plans. Five Brooklyn residents and the Coalition to Revitalize Our Waterfront Now, a citizen group formed in 2003 to advocate for sustainable waterfront development in Red Hook, filed suit in Supreme Court on February 8, 2005, seeking to void the City’s approval of an Ikea superstore on a 22-acre site along Brooklyn’s Erie Basin.

Ikea received the City’s final approval in October … <Read More>


Stormwater easements and acquisition approved

DEP to acquire 3.3 acres and three easements to establish stormwater runoff areas in Staten Island. In February the Planning Commission approved two actions associated with stormwater runoff systems in the Arden Heights, Annadale, Eltingville, Woodrow and Prince’s Bay neighborhoods of Staten Island, some of the last remaining areas in the city without established stormwater sewer systems.

DEP sought to acquire three easements, totaling .2 acres, in Prince’s Bay and Woodrow and in the second … <Read More>