NYC Department of City Planning

The City’s zoning laws are now instantly accessible to New Yorkers. On February 6, 2019, Department of City Planning Director Marisa Lago announced the release of the City’s digital Zoning Resolution online platform. The online platform will serve as a green replacement for the 1,570-page physical copy of the Resolution, which will no longer be printed to save money, increase government transparency, and fight climate change. It will also be a more interactive replacement for the static PDFs currently on the City Planning website. The platform will make the City’s Zoning Resolution more accessible for New Yorkers.

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P.C. Richard & Son Building. Image credit: DCP.

Proposed zoning protections expect to preserve the residential area between Union Square and Astor Place from rapid developments. On February 28, 2018, Manhattan Community Board 3 unanimously voted to include proposed zoning protections for the 3rd/4th Avenue corridors between East 8th and 14th Streets in Manhattan. The corridors are one of the areas between Union Square and Astor Place that will be impacted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Tech Hub Plan. The protections are one of the conditions for approval of the 14th Street Tech Hub. The plan calls for the development of a 21-story tech hub at 124 East 14th Street, currently the P.C. Richard & Son building. (more…)

Adult entertainment businesses continue their decades-long fight against zoning rules that restrict business locations. In the latest installment in the City’s efforts to restrict adult entertainment establishments, a federal court enjoined enforcement of the City’s zoning resolution. This is the latest court action in a series of actions that began in 1994. (more…)

Example of Garage Housing. Image Credit: Alexander Garvin.

Thousands of new affordable apartments can be created in a few months – maybe not 200,000, but more affordable apartments can be put on the market within one year than we have built in many years.

Indeed, thousands of new affordable apartments can be created in a few months – and without federal subsidies or public incentives of any kind!! (more…)

Owner claimed that lot, which is occupied by a one-story building that could not be safely enlarged, was underutilized. 71 Laight Street LLC applied to BSA for a variance to build a six-story, eighteen-unit residential building with twelve accessory parking spaces at 412 Greenwich Street in Manhattan’s Tribeca North Historic District. The site is occupied by a one-story freight-loading structure built in 1956 and currently used for parking, which the owner would demolish in order to construct the new building.

The owner initially proposed a 55,055 sq.ft., six-story building with a penthouse and unrestricted ground-floor retail uses. The proposed building would replicate the massing and design of an adjacent warehouse building at 401 Washington Street that was built in 1906. The proposal included a cast aluminum facade etched with a brick pattern mimicking the warehouse’s red-brick facade. The owner received approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission for the Morris Adjmi-designed project in September 2008. 5 CityLand 140 (Oct. 15, 2008). (more…)