Grand Street rezoning advances to Council

Developer of 14-story tower fought to delay rezoning; residents urged speedy approval. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve the Department of City Planning’s proposal to rezone 13 blocks along Grand Street and adjoining areas in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The area overlaps with the southern boundary of the extensive Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning, which the City adopted in 2005. 2 CityLand 67 (June 15, 2005).

Currently, the rezoning area is characterized by low-rise, mixed-use three- … <Read More>


To attorney Paul Selver, the Market Matters Most

When asked to recall projects throughout his 35-year career, land use attorney Paul Selver’s discussion becomes a vivid narrative of how the economy translates into New York City’s physical changes. Selver sees 1977 as the point when developers started looking ahead for the first time; the 1981 to 1988 development boom coincided with the economy’s exuberance and ended with the stock market crash. To Selver, his current projects, like a six-block rezoning in Coney Island, … <Read More>


New inclusionary zoning yields 536 units

HPD reports that an additional 1,139 affordable units are in the pipeline. At the Trends in New York City Land Use and Development forum co-hosted by the Center for New York City Law, HPD reported a total of 536 affordable units in construction and an added 1,139 units in the application phase as a result of the expanded inclusionary housing provisions.

The inclusionary housing provisions allow developers to increase the floor area of a development … <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>


Residential and commercial complex approved

Two four-story residential buildings approved after reduction in size and addition of commercial space. Southside Realty Holdings LLC, owner of an L-shaped group of eight lots located at 291 Kent Avenue in a Williamsburg manufacturing district, sought a variance in 2003 to construct two 11-story residential towers, totaling 122,905 sq.ft., and underground parking. The Planning Commission and Brooklyn Community Board 1 both opposed the application due to the site’s adjacency to the Domino Sugar Plant, … <Read More>


Council, after two delays, approves Port Morris plan

Yassky opposed over affordable housing issue. On March 9, 2005, the full Council approved the rezoning proposal for 129 lots in the South Bronx, converting it from manufacturing to mixed-use zoning that aims to further expand Bruckner Boulevard’s antique row and increase development of residential and livework uses. Initially scheduled for a vote on February 28, 2005, Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, elected only 14 days prior by a special election, requested a vote … <Read More>