Council Member Helen Rosenthal Gets a “High-Five from a Constituent. Image credit: NYCC/William Alatriste

City Council passes a package of bills intended to strengthen protections for tenants subject to harassment by landlords. Since the mid-2000s and largely due to the housing bubble, predatory equity has become a metastasis on the New York City housing market. The expulsion of both rent stabilized and market-rate tenants is accomplished through means both legal, by abusing technical loopholes in State law, and illegal, by dangerous living conditions and intimidation. (read more…)

Chair of the Committee on Housing and Buildings, Council Member Jumaane Williams. Image credit: NYCC/William Alatriste

City Council Committee to hear testimony on a package of bills intended to strengthen protections for tenants subject to harassment by landlords. Since the mid-2000s and largely due to the housing bubble, predatory equity has become a metastasis on the New York City housing market. The expulsion of both rent stabilized and market-rate tenants is accomplished through means both legal, by abusing technical loopholes in State law, and illegal, by dangerous living conditions and intimidation. (read more…)

Image Credit: Wikipedia

The City’s Planning Department withdraws its proposal to increase contributions to the Theater Fund, which supports local, off-Broadway theater productions. On February 27, 2017, the Department of Planning withdrew its application to raise the contribution rate for air rights sales within Manhattan’s Special Theater Subdistrict right before the City Council’s Zoning Subcommittee was set to vote on the issue. The proposed text amendment would have instituted a higher contribution rate, established a floor sale price, altered the sale review process, and changed the parameters of the Theater Fund’s authorities. (read more…)

Proposed rezoning of the Water Street POPS. Image credit: Department of City Planning

Council Members voiced concerns over the proposal’s provisions stripping the City Council of its review over future applications brought pursuant to the proposal. On May 4, 2016, the City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a public hearing on an application submitted by the Alliance for Downtown New York, the NYC Economic Development Corporation, and the Department of City Planning to amend the zoning text controlling the Water Street corridor in lower Manhattan. For CityLand’s previous coverage on the proposed rezoning of the Water Street POPS, click here.

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Garden Landscape rendering. Image Credit: Gensler.

Alterations part of larger renovations that will see greater handicapped accessibility, non-hierarchical office organization, creation of a visitor center, and space for associated non-profits. On April 19 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission considered and approved an application for work to the Ford Foundation Building, at 320 East 43rd Street in Manhattan. The 1967 building is an individual City landmark, and its atrium is also a designated interior landmark. The proposed work, which will alter the entrances, windows, and the atrium, was driven by programmatic needs, the necessity of code compliance, and handicapped accessibility. Currently, certain entrances to the building and portions of the garden are not handicapped-accessible. (read more…)

Council member Ben Kallos with Herndon Werth, a rent-stabilized tenant who refused to sell his home to developers. Image credit: The Office of Council member Ben Kallos

The proposal would protect neighborhood aesthetics with height caps on new developments and provide additional benefits to affected communities.  On January 21, 2016, the Department of City Planning received a zoning proposal from the East River Fifties Alliance, a neighborhood coalition led by City Council members Ben Kallos and Daniel Garodnick, which is the most comprehensive residential re-zoning proposal to ever be submitted by a community group. The proposal seeks to safeguard the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan from the construction of skyscrapers.  Council members Kallos and Garodnick, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and New York State Senator Liz Krueger are also co-applicants on the proposal, which can be found here.

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