Prospect Park. Image Credit: Joe Buglewicz courtesy of nycgo.com.

Prospect Park’s entire loop drive will be permanently car-free as of January 2, 2018. On October 23, 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans for the closure of Prospect Park’s East Drive to vehicles. The announcement follows the success of the Park’s car-free summer when East Drive was closed from July 17 to September 11. After Labor Day weekend, a petition with over 1,100 signatures to continue the car-free program was received. The Park’s West Drive has been permanently car-free since 2015. The Park’s East Drive will be closed to vehicles on January 2, 2018.

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Council Member Brad Lander. Image Credit: William Alatriste for the City Council.

The proposal would allow for the construction of a new ten-unit, four-story residential development on a vacant Brooklyn lot. On December 12, 2016, the City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises heard testimony on an application for the rezoning of three lots at 14–18 Carroll Street, in the Columbia Street Waterfront District neighborhood in Brooklyn Community District 6. The developer proposed the construction a ten-unit residential building on three vacant lots, totaling 6,229 square feet and currently zoned for light manufacturing. The application included a zoning text amendment to apply Inclusionary Housing regulations to the area prior to the December 12th hearing. The developer would have had to make a required payment into the City’s affordable housing fund required by the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law. (read more…)

Vanderbilt Mausoleum & Cemetery in New Dorp, Staten Island. Image Credit: LPC.

Landmarks voted to de-calendar St. Augustine’s Church and Rectory after designating an extension the Park Slope Historic District, in which the church is located. On April 12, 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission cast dispositive votes on ten items for designation, nine of which were included in the commission’s backlog initiative. Eight individual landmarks were designated, as well as one historic district. Commissioners voted to remove one item, St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church and Rectory, from its calendar. (read more…)

David Kramer, principal of the Hudson Companies, testifying before the City Planning Commission.  Image credit: CityLand

The proposed redevelopment would replace the current library with an upgraded library and luxury condominiums.  On September 22, 2015, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on the Department of Citywide Administrative Services’ and Brooklyn Public Library’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure application to redevelop the Brooklyn Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.  The proposal would replace the current library with a new 36-story building containing a new library on the ground floor and 139 market-rate condominiums above.  The proposed plan would also construct 114 permanently-affordable housing units at an off-site location in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.  The Brooklyn Heights Library is located at 280 Cadman Plaza West, and would remain open throughout the redevelopment process at an interim location inside Our Lady of Lebanon Church, located at 113 Remsen Street, which is five blocks from the library site.  Clinton Hill and Brooklyn Heights are both located within Brooklyn Community Board 2.

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Architect’s rendering of the Pavilion Theater development. Image credit: Morris Adjmi Architects

Proposal would demolish one-story commercial building to construct five-story-plus-penthouse apartment building, and build a contemporary addition onto 1920s theater. On April 18, 2015, Landmarks considered a proposal to demolish a one-story 1920s commercial building, construct a new apartment building, and alter and build an addition to a 1920s theater at 187-191 Prospect Park West in the Park Slope Historic District Extension. The theater building, at the corner of 14th Street, faces Prospect Park, as would the new apartment building, but with a longer curved facade on Bartel Pritchard Circle. The site’s developers are Hidrock Properties.

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Councilmember David Greenfield, chair of the Committee on Land Use. Image credit: William Alatriste/New York City Council

City officials questioned on policy to protect New York’s industrial sector.  On May 6, 2015 the City Council Committee on Land Use held an oversight hearing on industrial land use policy in New York City with a focus on protecting and encouraging the City’s industrial sector from encroaching alternative uses.  In his opening remarks, Councilmember and Land Use Chair David Greenfield emphasized as ineffective the City’s policy of designating Industrial Business Zones without changing the underlying zoning to protect industry from competing commercial uses and pointed out the importance of protecting the City’s industrial sector, comprising 10 percent of the local private sector workforce, frequently made of small businesses employing forty people or less, and paying significantly higher wages than the service sector.

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