From left: greenhouse (credit: Ari Burling, NY Sun Works); wind turbine (credit: Zimmer Gunsul, Frasca Architects); insulation (credit: Chris Benedict, R. A) and City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden

The City Planning Commission unveiled a proposal today to amend New York City’s zoning code to make it easier for buildings to incorporate environmentally friendly additions such as solar panels, wind turbines and wall insulation.

New Yorkers spend $15 billion annually to heat and power buildings, contributing 80 percent of the city’s carbon emissions. But building owners currently face height and floor area restrictions that can stand in the way of adding energy-saving features on building exteriors. In November, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden said her department would soon propose rule changes to do away with these hurdles, but she declined to provide details . [more]

Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden

From the December issue: This year marks the 50th anniversary of the city’s comprehensive “Zoning Resolution,” which dictated what types of development could go where.

The rules have undergone changes since taking effect in 1961, but in many ways, they continue to reflect the concerns of a prior era — when the automobile was king, manufacturing a steady source of employment and the Internet a far-off dream.

“We are occupying a social realm that’s different than [what] we constructed 50 years ago,” developer Jonathan Rose, founder of the eponymous real estate firm, said at a conference last month organized by the Department of City Planning, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch College. 

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From left: William Rudin, CEO of Rudin Management, a rendering of Rudin’s conversion of the St. Vincent’s hospital canvas, and Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden

Developer William Rudin said the “economics” of his company’s $1 billion conversion of the St. Vincent’s hospital campus into a 450-unit luxury residential development could not support affordable housing, as he came under fire from community officials for not doing enough to justify a requested rezoning of the Greenwich Village site.

Rudin, the CEO of Rudin Management, appeared today at the first public hearing in the uniform land use review procedure, or ULURP, to decide whether the developer can proceed with the controversial project, already four years in the making. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Fourth Avenue corridor and City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will formally present his plan to significantly expand on a recent bid by the Department of City Planning to rezone Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, the New York Post reported.

Markowitz wants to encourage retail development along a seven-mile stretch of Fourth Avenue from Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill to the Atlantic Ocean in Bay Ridge. City Planning’s proposal was to start at Atlantic Avenue and continue 56 blocks south to 24th Street in South Slope. Both rezoning would ban new apartments and parking lots on the ground-floor of new construction projects, and demand that half of ground-floor space be committed to retail. [more]

From left: City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel and Paul Selver, co-chair of the land use department at law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & FrankelThe Bloomberg administration on Dec. 12 will unveil a set of 20 new “green” zoning guidelines aimed at removing obstacles to sustainable building practices, city officials said.

“This is the most comprehensive effort to sweep away impediments to green buildings in our zoning,” City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden told The Real Deal on break at “Zoning the City,” a day-long conference sponsored by the agency, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch College, convened to address the future of zoning in the city.

She and Robert Steel, New York’s deputy mayor for economic development, who first announced the planned guidelines, declined to give specifics to the crowd of real estate pros, academics and city planning experts. [more]

From the September issue: In its eight years of publication, The Real Deal has covered the real estate industry in a city that’s been transformed by a massive building boom, was crippled by the subsequent bust, and is now in the midst of a tentative recovery.
The compendium of stories we’ve written runs the gamut from the record-setting building and apartment purchases during the boom, to the toppling of mega-developers during the bust, to new entrepreneurs trying to get into the real estate game during today’s fragile recovery. This month, for the anniversary of our 100th issue, we bring you some of the most compelling stories we’ve tracked in these pages, many of which have unfolded and evolved over time, much as the magazine itself has. And watch the video below to see The Real Deal Publisher Amir Korangy talk about the special process for creating the unique 100th issue cover.
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Jean Nouvel and the Torre Verre

It seems like architect Jean Nouvel’s Torre Verre, or MoMA Tower, might be back on track, with a spokesperson for developer Hines admitting that the project was back on and imminent, the New York Observer reported.

Nouvel’s skyscraper, delayed by the financial crisis, was first introduced in 2007 to much critical acclaim. It was slated to be as high as 1,250 feet on land traded by the Musuem of Modern Art to Hines, for $125 million and three floors of galleries in the base of the new building. It would be tall enough to rival the Empire State Building.  City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden was less enamored with the tower than others and insisted that 200 feet be knocked off the top, making it smaller than even the Chrysler Building. According to the Observer, Hines has quietly filed a new set of plans with the Department of City Planning, compliant with two special permits that the commission and the City Council approved in 2009. [more]

City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden has announced a rezoning proposal for 181 blocks in the Williamsbridge and Baychester neighborhoods in the north Bronx to encourage development and still protect lower density blocks from out-of-character buildings.

The proposed area is bound by the Bronx River and Shoelace Park to the west, the New England Thruway to the east, 233rd Street to the north and East Gun Hill Road, Lurting Avenue, Givan Avenue, and Hammersley Avenue to the south.

The rezoning, City Planning said, would “channel moderate new growth opportunities to wide corridors with better access to transit that can accommodate future growth, including White Plains Road and East Gun Hill Road.” --Katherine Clarke [more]

While previous rezonings have transformed Fourth Avenue in Park Slope from an auto-oriented, industrial block to one ripe with residential development, the area still isn’t the “complete neighborhood” the city envisioned, the Department of City Planning said. Retail is still sorely lacking. As a result, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden announced she is submitting a new rezoning proposal for public review that would require new developments to have at least 50 percent of ground-floor frontage be literally transparent and occupied by retail uses. “Fourth Avenue is a wide, transit-rich corridor with new housing and residents, but often lacks an active pedestrian environment,” Burden said in a statement. “This new proposal will help ensure the continued transformation of the avenue into a dynamic commercial corridor and provide much needed services to its surrounding communities.” – Adam Fusfeld [more]

A 20,000-square-foot corner at 400 Park Avenue South at 28th Street, which can support a 420,000-square-foot project, is going on the market via Studley. The site was assembled by developers A & R Kalimian, who were granted approval from the New York City Department of Planning for a “daring” design by French architect Christian de Portzamparc and Handel Architects. It was a favorite project of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, according to the New York Post.

After clearing most of the site, the developers have now opted to sell. [more]