From left: West 145th Street in West Harlem and Hancock Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant
Two of the city’s traditionally less affluent neighborhoods are poised to gain recognition for their historic character. The Department of City Planning said today it is launching the public review process for rezonings of West Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant North meant primarily to preserve the areas’ existing character. [more]
Solar panels in the city
The city is getting set to alter zoning regulations to encourage environment-friendly building construction and renovation. The New York Times said the City Council is expected to approve changes next week that would permit developers to add eight inches of thickness to exterior walls that are excluded from the building’s footprint measure and add height and alter facades of certain buildings to allow for solar panels, green roofs and wind turbines. [more]
Manhattan Beep Scott Stringer
Now that support for the Upper West Side retail rezoning has moved beyond local advocates and to the borough president’s office, other communities are beginning to consider similar legislation.
Crain’s reported that community boards in Tribeca, the East Village and Upper East Side are weighing restricting storefronts in order to preserve mom-and-pop shops and encourage a particular set of retail tenants. The Tribeca and East Village-Lower East Side advocates are focusing on the loss of local businesses and the saturation of night life in the areas. [more]
Having already ceded some of its demand to recent upstart office markets like Midtown South and downtown Manhattan, Midtown East is the subject of a Department of City Planning review intending to probe whether it needs to incentivize commercial property upgrades in the area, Crain’s reported.
Midtown East has more than 70 million square feet of office space, 13 Fortune 500 companies and about 250,000 jobs. [more]
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]
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]
Community Board 4 is partnering with the Department of City Planning to rezone 18 blocks of the Hell’s Kitchen-Clinton areas between 10th and 12th avenues and from 43rd to 55th streets, according to the Wall Street Journal. Residents are seeking to make the district less of a manufacturing zone and more of a mixed-use community, with a range of residential, retail and community space, while still preserving its affordability. [more]
After more than two decades, Chinatown is moving closer to forming a business improvement district that would give property owners services for a fee, charging as much as $5,000 per property, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Department of City Planning is now reviewing the plan, which must be approved by the department’s board of commissioners and the City Council. Though two earlier attempts to create a district were defeated, the measure has overcome early opposition. The proposed district would run between Broadway and Rutgers Street, stretching north to Broome Street and south to Madison Street. Comments
The New York City Department of City Planning voted unanimously yesterday morning to approve the proposed Soho Business Business Improvement District, according to Crain’s. The plan will now face City Council review, before the mayor’s office gives its final approval. If approved, the BID would join 64 others across the city, including the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership and the Fordham Road Business Improvement District. The city planning vote is a good sign for the proposal, according to Barbara Cohen, a senior associate with consultancy group Robert B. Pauls, which is helping structure the possible neighborhood improvement group. [more]
A gritty stretch of 80 blocks along Webster Avenue in the North Bronx could be reborn, according to the Wall Street Journal, as city officials consider a plan to rezone the industrial area. After holding a hearing yesterday, the Department of City Planning said it may revise old zoning regulations for the area, known as a haven for car-repair shops. Under the department’s proposal, the area would be rezoned to promote affordable residential development, as well as retail shops and hotels. Fernando Tirado, the district manager for the local community board, said that the proposal would be a welcome change. [more]
