Earlier this year, the de Blasio administration released a citywide plan called Zoning for Quality and Affordability … which entails several zoning changes.
To date, the proposal has reportedly concerned some neighborhood politicians, housing activists and preservation groups.
Here's more from the Greenwich Village Society of Historical Preservation:
GVSHP has expressed many concerns about the plan, particularly its impact upon the East Village where, on most avenues, it would increase the maximum allowable height of new development by 25 feet or up to 31 percent.
The premise of the plan is that it will create "higher quality" developments and allow for the creation of more affordable housing units, but we believe there is little or no evidence that either is the case, while the plan will clearly roll back hard-fought-for neighborhood zoning protections and result in a greater loss of light, air and scale in our neighborhoods.
You can read the city's PDF on how this would impact zoning in Community Board 3 right here.
Reps from the Department of City Planning will present the plan (PDF) this evening before CB3's Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing Committee. The meeting will take place at the Educational Alliance Manny Cantor Center, 197 E. Broadway (at Jefferson Street, one block east of Essex Street). The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m., though this is the fifth item on the agenda.
The plan requires advisory input from Community Boards and borough presidents as well as approval from the City Council, per Capital New York, who has more on the proposals here.
4 comments:
We are screwed no matter what happens unfortunately, we are up against a lot of developer money and they will always find away to stack the deck in their favor. Changing laws and asking developers to obey the new rules is like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coup.
Didn't we all compromise years ago on building up the avenues in order to preserve the low-rise, neighborhood feel of the streets? We can't freeze development everywhere. This isn't San Francisco.
By allowing more density on the avenues we are surrendering quality of life just to allow more people to live in Manhattan. Why do we need to increase the population of Manhattan. The infrastructure and and services can't keep up with it at present. And don't forget the 59 million tourists who come here every year stay in Manhattan mostly. That means 12 million a month added to the Manhattan population. New construction should be built in the outlying boroughs. It would be cheaper and faster to build.
To Anon 9:23 -- the fact that the community compromised for the 2008 rezoning is exactly why this broad-brush, city-wide rezoning is not OK.
In the '08 rezoning, lower heights were maintained on the streets, with higher heights on the avenues. Now the city wants to come in and increase allowable heights on the avenues by up to 25 feet. Putting "affordability" in the title of the proposal is a handy way to make everyone think this is worthwhile. While there is a HOPE for significant public benefit, there is NO GUARANTEE of it.
You can hardly walk down a street in NYC -- certainly not in Manhattan -- without running into scaffolding, cranes, etc. The whole place is a construction zone. Development is hardly being "frozen." You're right, this isn't San Francisco.
But it is a Village where local self-determination and local character are highly valued.
And 12:50 is right that the infrastructure is not keeping up.
Come to the meeting tonight, everybody!
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