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The City Planning Commission approves the rezoning of five-acres on the waterfront of the Harlem River. On August 23, 2017, the City Planning Commission approved an application by the New York City Economic Development Corporation to establish a Special Harlem River Waterfront Subdistrict for future development in the Bronx. The application included the sale of city-owned property to the Development Corporation, a zoning map and text amendment, and a special permit to reduce parking requirements. (read more…)

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 on the north, Morris and Lincoln Avenues to the east, and the Major Deegan Expressway and Park Avenue to the south. Abandoned or converted to other land uses, City Planning found that the area suffered from a 22 percent vacancy rate with over 40 percent of the area occupied by storage, warehousing, and other light industrial uses.

The approved plan rezones the area’s inland blocks to mixed-use districts, permitting residential and commercial development as-of-right, as well as allowing the continuation of light industrial uses. The proposal allows grocery stores of any size as-of-right whereas food stores over 10,000 sq.ft. previously required a special permit. The Inclusionary Housing Program also became applicable to the area. (read more…)

Thirty-block rezoning in South Bronx would encourage redevelopment of blighted waterfront. On June 19, 2008, the Department of City Planning held a public hearing on the draft scope of an environmental impact statement for the proposed Lower Concourse Rezoning. The proposal covers a 30-block area, generally bounded by the Harlem River on the west, East 149th to the north, Morris and Lincoln Avenues on the east, and the Major Deegan Expressway and Park Avenue to the south.

City Planning’s plan seeks to encourage new residential and commercial development and enhance the waterfront areas in the traditionally industrial section of the South Bronx. During the past two decades the area, which is readily accessible by public transit, has seen significant residential construction after an earlier period of disinvestment and population decline during the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time, industrial uses in the area have decreased, creating underutilized, industrial-zoned land that, according to City Planning, blights the neighborhood. (read more…)