In December 2005, Mayor Bloomberg signed Local Law 99, the first significant step towards the City’s goal of replacing the current Building Code, unrevised since 1968, with a national model code. Local Law 99 selected the International Building Code as the City’s model code and directed the Department of Buildings with preparing, and presenting to the City Council, modifications to the IBC making it responsive to New York’s unique construction, density and safety issues. As … <Read More>
Search Results for: Special Permit
Church wins right to review use in industrial zone
Church converted warehouse within industrial area and held services. In 2002, Abundant Life Alliance Church of New York bought a condo warehouse unit located within the College Point II Urban Renewal Area in Queens to operate a church. At the time of purchase Abundant knew there were restrictions on the warehouse’s use: the urban renewal plan did not list churches as a permitted use, the deed contained a restrictive covenant that required Abundant to comply … <Read More>
Far West Village rezoning approved
Council down-zoned lots with pending development. The Council rezoned 14 blocks of Greenwich Village west of Washington Street, replacing manufacturing and commercial zoning in the area with contextual zoning districts. The proposal came from the Planning Department after Far West Village residents complained of the growing number of large development proposals that followed construction of the Richard Meier-designed, 205-foot luxury residential towers along West Street.
In the proposal, the Planning Department designed contextual commercial zones … <Read More>
Zoning change to allow wind turbines and heliostats
Computerized heliostats will redirect sunlight from top of new green highrise down to Teardrop Park South. The City Council approved a text amendment that allows for a new class of permitted rooftop obstructions on residential buildings in the Special Battery Park City District in Manhattan: wind turbines and heliostats, which are mirrors that redirect sunlight to spaces cast in shadow.
The Battery Park City Authority has invested $355,000 to install three heliostats, eight feet in … <Read More>
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>
City increases zoning protection for Bay Ridge
New zoning designed to protect Bay Ridge from high-density development. On March 23, 2005, the City Council approved the Planning Department’s rezoning plan for a 249-block area within Brooklyn’s Special Bay Ridge District, bounded by 65th Street to the north, Seventh Avenue to the east and Shore Road to the south and west. In 1978, after neighborhood residents protested the development of three large residential buildings, the twin 30-story Bay Ridge Towers and the 13-story … <Read More>