New development would provide affordable housing while incorporating green design features. On October 7, 2008, the City Planning Commission unanimously approved the Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development’s plan to build a mixed-use, mixed-income development in the Melrose section of the Bronx. The proposed project, known as Via Verde/The Green Way, is a product of the New Housing New York Legacy Project competition, sponsored by HPD and the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The competition sought to inspire new forms of sustainable design for a mixed-use, mixed-income project on the irregularly shaped, City-owned parcel at East 156th St. and Brook Avenue. The winning plan, developed by Jonathan Rose Companies, Phipps Houses Group, Grimshaw Architects, and Dattner Architects, proposed a development that would range in height from three- to 20-stories and provide approximately 220 units of affordable housing, 8,532sq.ft. of retail and community space, and 27,700sq.ft. of open space.

The proposal includes three- to four-story townhouses, a six- to 14- story mid-rise building, and a 15- to 20-story tower that would wrap around two interior courtyards and an amphitheater. In addition, a series of gardens beginning in the courtyard would spiral up the structure through a series of green roofs. The Commission noted that the proposed design was sympathetic to the broad range of surrounding uses. The low-scale section of the proposed building would avoid shading the ballfields to the south, and the taller part of the building would be of similar height to an existing 18-story residential building to the east. (more…)

Plan for seven buildings includes Boricua College campus, 679 residential units and over 36,000 sq.ft. of retail. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development proposed to amend the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Area Plan in the Bronx to facilitate a large, seven building, mixed-use, residential and commercial complex called Boricua Village to be constructed on a 4.2-acre lot in the northeast corner of Melrose Commons.

HPD’s plan called for 18 changes to the existing Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Plan, which the City adopted in 1994 to encourage development in a 34- block area of the Bronx, roughly stretching from East 163rd Street to East 156th Street between St. Ann’s and Third Avenues to Melrose and Courtlandt Avenues. The amendments included changes in land use designations and the elimination of height limits, lot coverage requirements, street wall coverage provisions, and curb cut restrictions. HPD’s proposal also called for the rezoning of the entire 4.2-acre site to R8 with a C2-4 overlay to allow a higher residential floor area, and the disposition of 42 City-owned lots. (more…)

Settlement came after gardeners filed Article 78 petition. As reported in the November issue of CityLand, the City Council’s October 13, 2004 approval of the Courtlandt Avenue Apartments, a 167-unit, affordable housing development slated for Melrose Commons, would result in the demolition of several Bronx community gardens. The development site, comprising 16 lots, occupies most of the block between East 158th and East 159th Streets, and Park and Courtlandt Avenues.

On November 23, 2004, gardeners active in three Bronx Green Thumb Gardens filed a petition to stop the City’s demolition of the gardens and to declare the Planning Commission’s approval of the development unlawful. On November 24th, a temporary restraining order was granted and negotiations followed. (more…)

Map of Citi Bike expansion shown in dark blue. Expansion underway is shown in red. Existing CitiBike service shown in light blue. Image Credit: Mayor’s Office.

The Citi Bike expansion will double the current service area by 35 square miles and triple the number of bikes to 40,000. On July 16, 2019, the de Blasio Administration announced Citi Bike’s expansion. Last November, Lyft entered into an agreement with the City to invest $100 million in Citi Bike, which will double the size of Citi Bike’s service area and triple the number of bikes in the program. The expansion will take place from 2019 to 2023 and will bring Citi Bike to all of Manhattan, the Bronx, and deeper into Brooklyn and Queens. (more…)

Rendering of proposed new nine-story building at the corner of Brook Avenue and East 156th Street in the Bronx. Image Credit: CPC/Dattner Architects.

The development seeks to activate the streetscape in the area by removing the existing dangerous condition posed by a long-abandoned railroad trench. On March 27, 2019, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on an application by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and developer Phipps Houses that will bring 54 units of affordable housing to the Melrose neighborhood of the Bronx. The application calls for the disposition of City-owned property, a rezoning, the grant of a special permit and designation of the proposed development site as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, Option 1. The development site is located at the corner of East 156^th Street and Brook Avenue, across from Via Verde, a relatively recent environmentally-conscious residential complex, also built by Phipps Houses. (more…)