Modified Coney Island Master Plan Moves to Council

Modifications include increasing ground floor amusement requirements and easing bulk restrictions. On June 17, 2009, the City Planning Commission approved the seven linked applications comprising the City’s extensive redevelopment plan for Coney Island. The approval included demapping of streets and parkland, creation of new streets and parkland, and a 19-block rezoning, running from West 8th to West 20th Streets between Mermaid Avenue and the Riegelmann Boardwalk.

The product of over 300 public meetings dating back … <Read More>


Lower Concourse plan OK’d

 

Lower Concourse, Adopted Rezoning Map used with permission of the New York City Department of City Planning. All rights reserved.

Plan envisions public walkway along Harlem River waterfront. The Department of City Planning’s sweeping rezoning proposal for a 30-block area of the South Bronx, bordering the Harlem River, obtained City Council approval on June 30, 2009. The plan impacts the underused and primarily industrial-zoned area along the Harlem River, bounded by East 149th Street … <Read More>


Cord Meyer downzoned

Plan aims to end McMansion construction. On June 30, 2009, the City Council downzoned 32 blocks of the Cord Meyer-Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens from an R1-2 to an R1-2A district. Aimed at eliminating the construction of oversized single-family homes, often referred to as “McMansions,” the new district sets stricter bulk limits including a 35-foot maximum building height and a 500-foot maximum floor area exemption for parking. The original zoning set no height limit and … <Read More>


Robin Stout on the Future of the Moynihan Station Project

I n 2005, Robin Stout was appointed President of the Moynihan Station Development Corporation, the Empire State Development Corporation’s subsidiary charged with transforming the James A. Farley Post Office Building into a new train hall named for the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Stout, a Columbia Law School graduate, spent nine years at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP before joining the ESDC as Senior Counsel to the 42nd Street Development Project in 1990. Transforming … <Read More>


Williamsburg residential rowhouse district designated

Fillmore Place Historic District. Image: LPC.

Built as housing for working-class waterfront laborers, neighborhood remains remarkably intact. Landmarks designated the Fillmore Place Historic District on May 12, 2009. The district, primarily located on Fillmore Place between Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was privately developed during a period of rapid growth in Williamsburg during the 1850s. Although different developers likely had hands in Fillmore Place, the 29 rowhouses maintain cohesiveness in scale and … <Read More>


Coney Island Plan Debated

Public comments focus on affordable housing and concerns over likelihood of development in the area. On May 6, 2009, the City Planning Commission heard extensive testimony regarding the comprehensive rezoning proposal for Coney Island. The proposal would establish a new Special Coney Island District to guide redevelopment and revitalization of 19 blocks bounded by Mermaid Avenue to the north, the Riegelmann Boardwalk to the south, West 24th Street to the west, and the New York … <Read More>