Image from interactive story map, showing marathon route and first highlighted stop, Fort Tompkins. Image Credit: NYC LPC

New Yorkers anticipate the return of the marathon after last year’s cancellation due to COVID-19. On November 3, 2021, the Landmarks Preservation Commission released 50 for the 50th, an interactive story map that highlights 50 landmarks and historic districts along the NYC Marathon route to celebrate the 50th running of the marathon. The marathon, which started in 1970, is having its 50th running this year as last year’s marathon was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (more…)

Michael T. Sillerman

Land use attorney Michael T. Sillerman is often teased by his co-workers that he won’t work on a project unless there is a Pritzker Architecture Prize winner onboard. Although Sillerman doesn’t think that’s entirely true, he admits that his favorite part of being a land use attorney is how it overlaps with his love of architecture. As co-chair of Kramer Levin’s land use department, Sillerman typically spends as much time talking to architects and city planners as he does with other attorneys.

While Sillerman believes that there was “a certain serendipity” to becoming a land use attorney, the lifelong resident of the Upper West Side credits the influence of his mother, a former civic campaigner, and his early exposure to issues of public welfare and its intersection with City government. After studying reform movements in New York City politics at Cornell University and then teaching junior high school, Sillerman attended Columbia Law School. He started his legal career as a litigator at Paul,Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. A major turning point in Sillerman’s career occurred when he became the executive assistant to then- City Council President Carol Bellamy and learned the finer details of the City’s complicated land use process. (more…)

Change by Planning Commission rejected in part after lengthy Council hearing. The City Council voted to approve the rezoning plan for a 135- block area of the Douglaston and Little Neck communities of Queens and rejected a portion of the modifications made by the Planning Commission.

City Planning initially proposed a complex rezoning and text amendment for the area that down-zoned blocks found to have a zoning that permitted out-of-scale buildings. It also reduced the depth that commercial uses could intrude on residential districts and allowed a new grandfathering system for residents who commenced alteration work on their homes prior to the rezoning. Overall, the proposal restricted over 65 percent of the down-zoned area to single-family home construction.

After a public hearing, the Planning Commission slightly modified the proposal, carving out areas east of Marathon Parkway and west of Little Neck Parkway to retain less restrictive zoning. When the proposal reached the City Council, residents and community groups split over which proposal to support.

that developers lay behind the push to modify the first plan, citing the fact that developers papered the community with fliers claiming the new zoning would prevent residents from modifying their homes. Others added that the community and Planning painstakingly worked out the original proposal and it had “logic” to it. Residents in favor of the modified proposal spoke about concerns for their homes’ resale value. (more…)