CPC Chair Marisa Lago speaks during the August 3rd Review Session, the CPC’s first meeting in months. Image Credit: CPC

The full ULURP process will resume on September 14th. On August 3, 2020, the City Planning Commission resumed hearings for the first time since March 16th. Hearings had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic after Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order halting the ULURP process which allowed the City Planning Commission to cancel its meetings. While other agencies started resuming public hearings virtually in June and July, the City Planning Commission has been a notable holdout until now. For CityLand’s prior coverage of the COVID-19 impact on the ULURP process, click here.  (read more…)

Image Credit: City Planning Commission

NYC Engage announced with ULURP restart. On July 15, 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the City Planning Commission will start holding remote hearings, beginning with an August 3, 2020 Review Session and a public meeting on August 5, 2020. The Mayor also announced the launch of “NYC Engage,” a new online portal intended to facilitate public engagement during the remote public hearings. The last time that the City Planning Commissioned convened was during a March 2, 2020 review session.

(read more…)

Why did ULURP remain suspended when so many City agencies and public bodies took to virtual operations? On March 16, 2020, the Department of City Planning announced that, pursuant to an executive order from Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and all relevant public hearings and votes were suspended as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the suspension, Community Boards, Borough Presidents, and the City Council have virtually convened to tend to other matters but have not addressed any new or pending ULURP applications. Meanwhile, City Planning has accepted filings, but has yet to certify any new applications until the suspension is lifted. To read CityLand’s initial coverage of the ULURP suspension, click here.

(read more…)

Director of DCP Marisa Lago holds review session as the sole Commissioner in physical attendance on March 16, 2020.  Other Commissioners attended the meeting remotely, in an attempt to keep the ULURP process moving before Mayor de Blasio’s Executive Order was signed. Image Credit: NYC CPC

The executive order freezes land use applications so public meetings do not need to occur. On March 16, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed Emergency Executive Order #100, which laid out several steps of the City’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. In the interest of limiting public gatherings to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, Emergency Executive Order #100 freezes land use applications that have a timed review or vote requirement. This includes applications within the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) as well as applications before the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Emergency Executive Order also waived the City Charter’s requirement to hold at least two City Council stated meetings per month. As a result, Landmarks, community boards, Borough Presidents, the City Planning Commission and the City Council do not have to meet to take action on active land use applications.  (read more…)

Rendering of Proposed Development at 35-37 Rochester Avenue Image Credit: City Planning

Affordable homeownership project receives generally positive feedback. On January 22, 2020, the City Planning Commission heard an application by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development for the disposition of city-owned property and to designate three areas in the southern portion of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn as Urban Development Action Areas. The UDAAP designation would help facilitate the construction of seven new buildings and 78 affordable homeownership units. Felipe Cortez, a borough planner at HPD and Jack Heaney from Fulcrum Properties presented the application.

(read more…)

Proposed rezoning. Image credit: CPC.

City expected to appeal Judge’s decision invalidating the Inwood Rezoning. On December 10, 2019, Judge Verna L. Saunders of the New York State Supreme Court, New York county ruled in favor of the Northern Manhattan is Not For Sale’s Article 78 petition challenging the legality of the Inwood Rezoning. The rezoning was proposed by the city’s Economic Development Corporation and was set to up-zone 59 blocks in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan. Approval of the rezoning would permit property owners to build mixed-use commercial and residential developments up to thirty stories tall, where predominantly one to two story-buildings and warehouses previously existed. The plan also included nearly 1,600 new affordable housing units. Northern Manhattan is Not For Sale is an unincorporated association of individuals and organizations alleging the City failed to study the critical impacts of the rezoning before City Council approved the application on August 8, 2018. In large part Northern Manhattan is Not For Sale believes that the rezoning will displace longtime Inwood residents.

(read more…)