Illustrative rendering of the envisioned street view. Image Credit: DCP.

The proposed zoning actions were largely disapproved by the Community Board, the Borough President, and even Staten Island’s appointee to the City Planning Commission. The Department of City Planning, along with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services filed an application requesting several ULURP actions to help implement the goals of the Bay Street Corridor Neighborhood Plan. The Neighborhood Plan is a comprehensive plan to foster a new mixed-use residential and commercial corridor connecting the St. George, Stapleton and Tompkinsville North Shore neighborhoods of Staten Island. The plan was developed with extensive input from community stakeholders, local advisory committees, elected officials and others, working with the Department of City Planning and other City agencies including the Parks Department, the Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Environmental Protection, and Department of Transportation, for over three years. (read more…)

Civic association proposed the rezoning to protect area’s low-density character and hilly topography. On April 14, 2010, the City Council approved the Clove Lake Civic Association’s proposal to rezone twenty blocks in the Grymes Hill and Sunnyside sections of Staten Island. The area, located near Wagner College, is generally bounded by Silver Lake Park to the north, Sunnyside Terrace to the south, Highland to the east, and Clove Road to the west. The predominately residential neighborhood features narrow, steeply graded streets and is characterized by single- family, detached homes, with small pockets of attached and detached two-family homes and multi-family buildings.

The civic association proposed the rezoning in response to recent out-of-character development that replaced single-family, detached homes with two-family homes on steep roads that cannot accommodate increased traffic. The majority of the area was down-zoned from R3X to R2, which only permits single-family, detached homes and reflects the area’s prevailing built character. A small portion of the area to the east was rezoned from R3X to R3-2 in order to match the existing attached townhouse buildings in that area. The plan also expanded the Special Hillsides Preservation District to include an area bounded by Victory Boulevard, Howard and Highland Avenues, and Clove Road. In 1989, the City created the preservation district to preserve northern Staten Island’s sloping topography. (read more…)