Plan for seven buildings includes Boricua College campus, 679 residential units and over 36,000 sq.ft. of retail. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development proposed to amend the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Area Plan in the Bronx to facilitate a large, seven building, mixed-use, residential and commercial complex called Boricua Village to be constructed on a 4.2-acre lot in the northeast corner of Melrose Commons.

HPD’s plan called for 18 changes to the existing Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Plan, which the City adopted in 1994 to encourage development in a 34- block area of the Bronx, roughly stretching from East 163rd Street to East 156th Street between St. Ann’s and Third Avenues to Melrose and Courtlandt Avenues. The amendments included changes in land use designations and the elimination of height limits, lot coverage requirements, street wall coverage provisions, and curb cut restrictions. HPD’s proposal also called for the rezoning of the entire 4.2-acre site to R8 with a C2-4 overlay to allow a higher residential floor area, and the disposition of 42 City-owned lots. (more…)

Approved plan rezones 161st Street and River Avenue corridor and establishes new C6-3D commercial zoning district. On September 30, 2009, the City Council approved the Department of City Planning’s proposal to rezone areas along 161st Street and River Avenue in southwest Bronx. The rezoning impacts portions of eight blocks in three separate areas within the heart of the borough’s civic center, described as the Residential, Civic, and Transit Nodes. The broad rezoning area is generally bounded by 162nd Street to the north, 153rd and 159th Streets to the south, Park Avenue to the east, and River Avenue to the west.

The corridor is surrounded by a variety of land uses including the new Yankee Stadium, the Bronx County Courthouse and Borough Hall, and is near the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Area. The corridor has easy access to mass transit including the 4, B, and D subway lines, and the Metro-North rail line. The area has experienced limited residential development and commercial expansion largely due to its zoning, which had remained mostly unchanged since 1961. The plan seeks to encourage the development of affordable housing, promote commercial expansion, and strengthen the area’s overall appeal. (more…)

Site contains six community gardens. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development fIled an application for the disposition of City-owned land and designation of an Urban Development Action Area for the construction of the Courtlandt Avenue Apartments, a five-story, 1 67- unit, low-income housing project in the Bronx.

The 55,980 sq.ft. project site, bounded by Courtlandt and Park Avenues and East 158th and 159th Streets, is comprised of 16 lots, of which 1 1 are vacant, two contain abandoned buildings, and three contain six community gardens. The six gardens are part of the 543 City community gardens subject to a 2002 settlement agreement between the City and the State Attorney General. 8 CityLaw 116 (2002) . Under the agreement, 198 gardens became permanent open spaces, 38 were set for development, and 114 became subject to a review process that could ultimately lead to development. (more…)