Visit EDC's website to download the RFP

City seeks proposals for industrial-use lots in parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. On June 25, 2012, the Economic Development Corporation issued a rolling request for proposals for the purchase or lease of four City-owned industrial parcels in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The sites are: North Zerega in Unionport, Bronx; Chestnut-Dinsmore in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn; Moore McCormack in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; and College Point in the College Point Industrial Park section of Queens. The RFP is a part of EDC’s efforts to support the retention and growth of industrial businesses in the City, and complements the 22 industrial initiatives announced by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn in June 2011. The goals of the RFP include increasing access to affordable industrial spaces and aligning City resources with industrial businesses’ needs. All four lots are eligible for the City’s Brownfield Incentive Grant program and federal Environmental Protection Agency grants. The sites are zoned for manufacturing, which allows manufacturing, industrial, and most commercial uses.

(read more…)

Full Council rejects resolution but not project. Private developer College Point Holdings I LLC filed four linked applications for its plan to develop 100 units and 100 parking spaces within 26 attached buildings on a two-acre site in the College Point area of Queens. The applications included a rezoning application to alter the site from manufacturing zoning to residential zoning (M1-1 to R4) that allows as-of-right residential development. Also included were two special permits to allow an increase in floor area for the inclusion of open space and community facility space. Also, the developer planned to make improvements to Herman A. MacNeil Park by adding a kayak and canoe storage area, a boat launch, seating, and landscaping.

The City Planning Commission approved the project in April 2008. When the proposal reached the Council’s Land Use Committee in June, it voted unanimously to approve and sent a proposed resolution approving the project to the full Council for a vote. At the Council, however, twenty-five Council members, including twelve Land Use Committee members who had approved the project one week earlier, voted against the resolution, thereby denying it the full Council’s approval. Of those voting “no,” only Council Member Inez Dickens explained her vote, stating that she wanted an affordable housing component. (read more…)