A rendering of Columbia’s proposed Steven Holl-designed athletic facility at Baker Field

The City Council voted yesterday to approve Columbia University’s Baker Field waterfront development project in Inwood, clearing the way for the school to build a new 47,700-square-foot, Steven Holl-designed athletic facility under modified zoning rules, DNAinfo reported. The debate leading up to the vote had centered upon Columbia’s request for a zoning variance at the 218th Street and Broadway site. In order to build a facility of that size, the city would normally have required 15 percent of the waterfront land to be exchanged for public use. Columbia will now be allowed to give up just 1.5 percent of the property for that purpose. [DNAinfo]
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From left: Mathieu Eugene, Peter Koo, Darlene Mealy, Erik Dilan, Jumaane Williams and Fernando Cabrera

Six New York City council members bent city housing laws to the brink of their breaking point to obtain affordable residencies, according to a Daily News investigative report.

Council members Jumaane Williams, Fernando Cabrera, Peter Koo and Mathieu Eugene allegedly received as much as $1,500 in tax breaks by reporting primary residencies outside of their council district homes.

Council member Erik Dilan lives in a home reserevd for families earning less than $114,000 even though he and his wife combine to earn $45,000 more than, said the Daily News. Darlene Mealy moved into an apartment available for families making less than $15,200 in 1993, but within two years made a $14,000 down payment on a $90,000 home nearby. Williams was also found to have illegally converted the basement of his apartments.
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From left: City Council member Daniel Garodnick, Rose Associates’ Adam Rose and trees in Stuyvesant Town

Special servicer CWCaptial Asset Management is set to remove hundreds of trees from the sprawling Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village residential complex, according to the Wall Street Journal, after residents complained the greenery posed a safety threat. The trees, which former owner Tishman Speyer began planting at the 11,200-unit residential community in 2006, allowed “for somebody of ill will to hide and potentially perform a criminal act,” said City Council member Daniel Garodnick at the time. But while residents butted heads with Tishman Speyer over the arboreal plantings, Adam Rose, co-president of Stuy Town property manager Rose Associates, said he agrees with the tenants. [more]

A new program to aid struggling homeowners with their property taxes and water and sewer bills is also expected to generate additional revenue for the city, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Lien Sale Reform and Authorization Act, approved by the City Council this week, allows the city to sell liens on two- and three-family homes with up to $2,000 in unpaid bills. The city has been making around $40 million per year off of lien sales since it began selling liens to investors in the 1990s, but until now, it has only been able to sell liens on debts of up to $1,000, and only on single-family homes. [more]

The City Council is set to approve legislation tomorrow that would give stricter penalties to landlords who violate city heat laws, the Wall Street Journal reported. The legislation was sponsored by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to sign the bill into law, an aide confirmed. “For too long, bad landlords have profited by withholding heat from tenants every winter,” de Blasio said. “Passing the Heat Act will toughen penalties on those repeat offenders and make them think twice before leaving tenants in the cold.” [more]

Christine Quinn

From the February issue: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, 44, may soon be gunning to become New York’s first female mayor. And she appears to have a lot of support from the city’s real estate industry. Indeed, Quinn has amassed more than $3 million in current and leftover funds for a possible run in 2013, with much from usual suspects like Durst, Roth and Rudin. Though their support may make Quinn appear pro-development, she also wins praise from tenants. A former housing activist, she’s cracked down on negligent landlords, while also slamming the generally pro-landlord Rent Guidelines Board. Until this summer, her own office is on the 18th floor of 250 Broadway, where the council is based while City Hall is being refurbished. Click here to sneak a peek at her desk.

From the January issue: A new City Council measure seeks to force slumlords to pay their debts to the city or risk not getting new permits and government contracts allowing them to build. “If they want to build more projects in the city, they should pay up first before they go on and build more,” Council member James Vacca, the bill’s sponsor, told the Daily News. Vacca’s so-called Bad Actors Bill would require developers who apply for new permits to name every investor with a 10 percent stake in the property and certify that none has debts exceeding $25,000 in taxes, water bills, fines or liens for emergency repairs done by the city. Mayor Bloomberg had not yet spoken publicly on it, but aides say they’re exploring ways to prevent those in debt from using city services. However, the New York Building Congress is against the bill and believes it will destroy job opportunities. “The hurdles to development activity in New York City are greater by far than in anyplace else in the country, and this just adds to it,” said Building Congress President Richard Anderson. “There must be a better way to accomplish this than to add to the regulatory morass that exists already.” [more]

Local officials and residents are riled over a plan to operate an elite public school set to open inside a crumbling educational facility in Park Slope, which houses three existing troubled high schools. The school, Millennium Brooklyn, has raised hackles in the community, inciting claims of racism and discrimination against the schools inside the John Jay High School building, according to the Brooklyn Paper. Among the biggest complaints opponents have is an allotted $35,000 in extra funding to Millennium for computers and other equipment, according to local City Council member Brad Lander. [more]

A shared kitchen space for culinary entrepreneurs has opened inside La Marqueta, an East Harlem marketplace located on Park Avenue between 111th and 116th streets, city officials announced today. The 3,000-square-foot kitchen incubator, known as HBK Incubates, is designed to help small cooking businesses transition from working in home kitchens to professional facilities. “This kitchen incubator will provide the ingredients to help our local food entrepreneurs turn their passion for cooking into thriving businesses,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who attended the incubator’s unveiling today. TRD [more]

From left: Christine Quinn, Gary Barnett and Riverside Center

The New York City Council voted unanimously today to approve Extell Development’s controversial Riverside Center, a planned mixed-use complex slated for a swath of land extending between West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard and between 59th and 61st streets, according to a spokesperson for the developer, Gary Barnett. Riverside Center is expected to include 2,500 apartments, a 250-room hotel, 104,000 square feet of office space and a kindergarten-through-eighth grade school. TRD [more]