Some areas of Staten Island that would be affected by rule changes. Image Credit: NYC DCP
The changes allow homeowners to bypass the lengthy review process for certain types of projects. On July 2, 2020, the Department of City Planning announced new proposed zoning rules for some Staten Island neighborhoods that make zoning rules more efficient and homeowner-friendly, and that reflect recent advances in environmental science. (more…)
City seeks industrial maritime use for 33-acre site along Arthur Kill Channel. The City’s Economic Development Corporation issued a request for expressions of interest for the reactivation of an industrial maritime use on a waterfront site in Rossville, Staten Island. The 33-acre parcel along Arthur Kill Channel is north of the West Shore Expressway and abuts the Bloomfield Liquefied Natural Gas Tank property on Chemical Lane. Arthur Kill Channel supports deep-draft vessels used in domestic and international shipping. The mostly vacant site is zoned M3-1 for heavy manufacturing uses. The site is the largest City-owned property available for maritime development and would be available for purchase or long-term lease.
Small rezoning would facilitate expansion of Woodrow Plaza shopping center. On June 29, 2011, the City Council approved Ottavio and Leonello Savo’s proposed expansion of the Woodrow Plaza shopping center at the corner of Woodrow Road and Rossville Avenue in Staten Island. Woodrow Plaza was built in the early 1980s and includes two, one-story buildings and a surface parking lot accessible from Rossville and Alverson Avenues. The project site consists of two wooded, vacant lots located south of the parking lot along Woodrow Road. In 2001, the shopping center’s prior owner proposed building two, one-story buildings on the vacant lots, but the City Planning Commission denied the application.
The Savos plan to develop two, two-story commercial buildings totaling 37,200 sq.ft. and a 124-space parking lot facing the existing shopping center. They plan to improve circulation in the expanded parking lot by reconfiguring the driveways and adding a curb cut at an existing three-way intersection at Woodrow and Foster Roads. The Savos submitted multiple applications to facilitate the project, including a request to apply a C2-2 commercial overlay to the R3X-zoned project site and for a zoning text amendment to remove a portion of the project site from the Special South Richmond Development District’s designated open space boundaries. Pursuant to the special district’s regulations, the proposal also needed the Commission’s authorization to modify the site’s topography. (more…)
Rezoning proposed to prevent attached homes in area settled by freed slaves in 1827. On February 3, 2010, the City Council approved State Senator Andrew J. Lanza’s rezoning proposal for the Sandy Ground neighborhood of Staten Island. Sandy Ground, also known as Rossville, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as one of the country’s oldest communities established by freed slaves. The rezoning impacts 35 blocks generally bounded by the West Shore Expressway to the north and west, Ramona Avenue to the south, and Lenevar and Alverson Avenues to the east.
The area is characterized predominantly by detached and semidetached homes, but over the past several years Sandy Ground has experienced an increase in the development of attached townhouses and multi-family buildings. The rezoning aims to prevent out-of-scale development by down-zoning the area from R3-2 to R3-1, a district that does not permit attached homes. (more…)
Todd Dale testifies before the Board of Standards and Appeals. Image credit: BSA
Seven of the proposed homes did not front on a legally-mapped street. On January 6, 2015 the Board of Standards and Appeals voted to grant the applicant, Block 7092 LLC, a waiver to allow construction of seven residential buildings on an unmapped street. The buildings are part of a development of twenty-four two-story, one- and two-family dwellings and one three-story, two-family home located at the intersection of Turner Street and Crabtree Avenue in Rossville, Staten Island.
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