Council Member Ben Kallos
Last week, the City Council passed a resolution in support of allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to serve on their local community boards. The resolution throws City support behind Albany legislation that would amend the City Charter and Public Officers Law to let the teens become full voting members of their boards.
Rendering of Chelsea Market’s proposed Tenth Avenue addition. Courtesy of Jamestown Properties and Studios
Borough president and local community board oppose current plan to build additions to the eastern and western sides of block-long Chelsea Market. On July 25, 2012, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on Jamestown Properties’ expansion plan for Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. The Market is a complex of 18 different buildings occupying the entire block bounded by West 14th and West 15th Streets and Ninth and Tenth Avenues and was formerly occupied by Nabisco. A portion of the High Line elevated park runs through the Market’s western edge on Tenth Avenue. The Market provides more than 1.1 million sq.ft. of space for food-related and non-food-related retail and wholesale businesses, along with media and technology companies.
Jamestown’s initial proposal included building a 240,000-square-foot, nine-story office addition on the Tenth Avenue side of the Market, and a 90,000-square-foot, 11-story hotel addition on the Ninth Avenue side of the Market. The nine-story addition on Tenth Avenue would increase the Market’s height from 84 feet to 226 feet. The 11-story addition on Ninth Avenue would increase the tallest portion of that side of the Market from 51 feet to 160 feet. Jamestown did not propose any new development for the mid-block.
Proposal would establish new height and bulk regulations in northern portion of Special Tribeca Mixed Use District. On September 15, 2010, the City Planning Commission approved the Department of City Planning’s North Tribeca Rezoning proposal. The 25-block rezoning area is generally bounded by Canal Street to the north, Walker and Hubert Streets to the south, Broadway to the east, and West Street to the west. The plan would impact the Special Tribeca Mixed Use District’s A4, B1, and B2 subareas. It would replace the area’s existing M1-5 manufacturing zoning with a C6-2A commercial mixed-use district and create new special district subareas that better reflect northern Tribeca’s increasingly residential and commercial character.
North Tribeca was primarily a manufacturing district characterized by industrial and warehouse buildings, with limited residential uses. As the industrial base declined in the 1960s and 70s, vacant buildings attracted new residential and commercial tenants. The City in 1976 created the Special Tribeca Mixed Use District to establish zoning rules that permitted controlled residential uses to coexist with light manufacturing uses. The special district applied flexible residential use regulations to the southern portion of Tribeca, but prohibited new residential development in North Tribeca in order to preserve its industrial character. (read more…)
Landmark West! representative altered public official’s statement when she read it during public hearing. Virginia Parkhouse, a Landmark West! representative, allegedly misread a letter from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer into the record at a Landmarks Preservation Commission public hearing. Stringer subsequently informed Landmarks of the misstatement, Landmarks complained to the Department of Investigation, and DOI issued a subpoena to Parkhouse. Parkhouse moved to quash the subpoena, claiming that it interfered with her right to free speech and that DOI was not authorized to subpoena private citizens. The lower court upheld the subpoena and the First Department affirmed. 5 CityLand 129 (Sept. 15, 2008). (read more…)
