Proposal includes controversial new bulk waiver that will impact ten community districts. West 60th Street Associates, LLC applied to rezone 14 lots in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square neighborhood from manufacturing to commercial zoning. On 11 lots, West 60th would develop a mixed residential and commercial project with 301 rental units, 41 condos, 10,000 sq.ft. of retail and 200 parking spaces. Along with a special permit for on-site parking, West 60th proposed a text amendment that would allow a new bulk waiver by special permit.

As proposed, the text change would allow developers of general large scale developments located within certain commercial districts, to vary the required height factor calculation, a bulk measurement that takes into account open space, height regulations and set backs to establish the final building shape. The height factor often leads to buildings set back from the street, surrounded by open space. West 60th argued that a permitted variation would result in improved open spaces and site plans. The text amendment would impact lots in ten community districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. (more…)

Manhattan’s first green roof, installed in 1998, sits on top of the 1902 Georgian townhouse at 122 East 38th Street in Murray Hill, the home of Earth Pledge, a New York based nonprofit that promotes green building technologies. Founded by Theodore Kheel to support the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio, Earth Pledge now sponsors the Greening Gotham program, an initiative to get New York City developers, building owners, and government officials behind green roof installation. Leslie Hoffman, Earth Pledge’s Executive Director, spoke with CityLand about the city’s standing, its policy and turning affordable housing green.

Why Green. Hoffman began as a minimum wage carpenter in Maine, became a general contractor and moved on to design green building projects. She holds a degree in Architecture and Design from Colorado College, has co-authored green technology books and even runs an organic coffee farm. Hoffman explained that green roofs are fundamentally lightweight, engineered systems of insulation, drainage, soil, and vegetation constructed on top of a traditional roof. It’s an “an elegant solution to common urban problems,” Hoffman declared, listing green roofs’ ability to boost insulation, cool buildings, reduce energy use by 10 to 30 percent, lower area air temperature, absorb 80 percent of storm water lessening runoff, and protect the roof from weather cycles and UV rays. Installation adds about $10 per square foot, but Hoffman points out that a green roof can last for 50 years where traditional roofs need replacement after only 15. The Greening Gotham program envisions a network of green roofs stretching across the city’s skyline, which advocates and researchers believe could diminish the “urban heat island effect,” a term used to describe the fact that the city is 3 to 6 degrees hotter on summer days than its surrounding suburbs. (more…)

Council overrode mayor’s veto, claiming Cass Gilbert-designed building is unworthy of designation. On December 5, 2005, Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the City Council’s vote rejecting the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation of a Williamsburg, Brooklyn warehouse. The Council gathered sufficient votes on December 8th to override the mayor, calling the building simply unworthy.

Landmarks had unanimously designated the Austin Nichols & Co. Warehouse building in September 2005 over the objection of the owner and Council Member David Yassky, Williamsburg’s representative. 2 CityLand 139 (Oct. 15, 2005). The 1913-built, 500,000-square-foot warehouse was designed by Cass Gilbert and is viewed as his first substantial concrete warehouse construction. It sits along Williamsburg’s East River waterfront and within the 183-block area rezoned by the City in May, 2005. (more…)

Council unable to override Mayor’s veto. The proposed sites of three marine waste transfer stations were approved after the City Council failed to get sufficient votes to override Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s veto.

The Department of Sanitation had sought separate site selection approvals through ULURP applications to construct four new marine transfer stations. The four transfer stations were a component of Mayor Bloomberg’s 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan, which at the time of the applications was still pending approval before the City Council. (more…)

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 in Sunset Park were proposed; both had incinerators or transfer stations that closed in the past five years. The fourth site in College Point Queens, at the foot of 31st Avenue, has a vacant marine transfer station.

At the March 2, 2005 Commission hearing, Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty testified that since the Fresh Kills Landfill closed in 2001 Sanitation has been operating on interim contracts for the export of residential solid waste by truck. He stated that the four transfer stations would allow Sanitation to comply with state environmental laws, decrease reliance on truck transport and make each borough self-sufficient in the transfer of its waste. Each new structure would incorporate state-of-the-art ventilation and odor control systems that would remove 90 to 99 percent of the odorous compounds. (more…)