By Kit Dillon 9/20/12 5:36pm

In the Rezone

After 40 years, is this for real?

SPURA Spat Sweeps Council: After 40 Years, Disbelief Abounds

Yesterday, at a City Council hearing on the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, more commonly known as SPURA, the proper pronunciation of acronym—s-pure-rah? spur-ae? spewer?— wasn’t the only point in contention. The other question, the one the public, very many of them, had come out to answer was: Could New York finally take real steps, after nearly 40 years of waiting, to develop a long-neglected series of parking lots on the Lower East Side while still maintaining the famed spirit and character of that neighborhood. Or, as some would have it, would SPURA become just another in a long chain of missed opportunities.

The hearing, chaired by council members Steve Levin of Brooklyn, chair of the zoning subcommittee, and Margaret Chin, the local rep, was a packed affair with the honorable Mr. Levin often reminding people to show their appreciation by, “doing the Occupy Wall Street thing,” as he wiggled his fingers in the air. “Jazz hands” is the technical term, we believe. It was a gesture that would be seldom actually seen during the next three and a half hours, with many of the speakers, both for and against the project, receiving their own rounds of loud supportive applause. The truth was this crowd came to be heard and many of them had been waiting for a very long time.   Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/14/12 1:17pm

In the Rezone

Does a big street call for big buildings? (Bridge & Tunnel Club)

West Harlem Rezoning Still Too Big, Say Locals Hoping Council Will Fight Back

Recently, the City Planning Commission approved plans for the rezoning of West Harlem, a plan meant to protect the smaller-scale of the neighborhood. Some locals believe it still allows for outsized development in some places, specifically along the 145th Street corridor. They have written a letter to the City Council, which will make the final decision on the rezoning in the next month or so, urging it to reduce the height of buildings on 145th Street. The letter, provided to The Observer by a concerned citizen, can be read in full after the jump. Read More

By Chloe Ashby 9/06/12 6:02pm

Road Rage

Watch it, kid! (Getty)

City Council Puts the Brakes on Commercial Bikers, Delivery Men, Two-Wheeled Speed Demons

“New Yorkers want what they want, when they want it, but that doesn’t excuse the disregard of safety—this is not the Wild West.”

Bronx Councilman James Vacca was sitting behind the long desk inside the 14th floor hearing room at 250 Broadway as a hearing of the Transportation Committee, which he oversees, was just getting started. He had taken the reins, or rather the handlebars, as he so often does when the committee turns its focus on the state of cycling in the city, a subject that gives Mr. Vacca, along with a few million New Yorkers, a great deal of consternation.

Today, the committee was tackling commercial cyclists and deliverymen—figuratively, though they probably would not mind actually tackling a few scofflaw two wheelers if given the chance. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/25/12 6:39pm

Road Rage

ped_struck_II

Is the NYPD Letting Drivers Get Away With Murder? City Council Wants More Accident Investigations

Each year, there are upwards of 3,500 serious injuries resulting from traffic accidents. The NYPD has ten times as many officers, yet it only assigns 19 of them to look into such incidents and investigates less than 1 in 10 as a result. Even then, investigations take place only when those involved are dead or believed to be dying. Sometimes they die without an investigation because on the scene, officers believe the injured will make it.

Members of the City Council and families who have lost relatives on the road arrived on the steps of City Hall this morning to decry what they consider a lack of enforcement and announce the introduction of a set of bills and resolutions they hope will impel the police department and the Bloomberg administration to take action. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/23/12 7:30pm

It Takes a Village

5 Photos

NYU 2031 Thumbs Up

NYU Anew: Just How Much Smaller Is the Shrunken Greenwich Village Expansion?

Tomorrow, NYU will take its somewhat shrunken plan for its Greenwich Village expansion back to the City Council. Last week, local rep Margaret Chin convinced the school to shave 17 percent off its scheme, modifications that were approved today at the City Planning Commission. The university has cooked up a new set of renderings showing the changes to the towers on the site in anticipation of full council approval come Wednesday. Can you tell the difference? Read More

By Matt Chaban 10:54am

Gettin' High Line

Who needs a proper playground when you have this? (FotHL)

The High Line Has a Way With Money, Scores $5 M. While Neighbors Go Wanting

One of the chief complaints against the Chelsea Market expansion explored in this week’s Observer is that the project held no benefits for the community, only the High Line, which was receiving $19 million toward a long-term improvement fund.

It is only the latest sign of the park’s pull in the neighborhood and in the city, but here is another: DNAinfo dug into the city budget and found that the High Line is getting $5 million toward the creation of its third section. That is many times what neighboring amenities are getting, such as Hudson River Park, which is in much more dire shape. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/17/12 8:55pm

It Takes a Village

7 Photos

NYU had planned to expand its campus by nearly 2.5 million square feet on two superblocks south of Washington Square Park (pictured). After months of negotiations, it has not agreed to a 1.9 million square foot expansion, a 22 percent reduction in space. Almost half the campus is located underground, so the sections above have been cut 26 percent over time.

Renderings and Reactions to NYU’s Greenwich Village Expansion: What It Looks Like, What It Means

New York University won a huge victory at the City Council today, when it received approval for its somewhat less massive plan to expand its campus in Greenwich Villag, from from 2.5 million square feet to 1.9 million. What does that look like? The university produced some handy visual aids that show exactly that.

Was it enough? Not according to the project’s opponents, two dozen or so of whom showed up at the council this morning to waggle their hands in the face of the assembled pols (cheers, boos and hisses were forbidden, so they were left with jazz hands, like an Occupy protest).

“I’m really disappointed,” Community Board 2 chair David Gruber said after the land use committee voted 19-1 in favor of the modified plan. “I really felt the plans was not modified enough. NYU, with the tacit backing of the mayor, felt they could do whatever they wanted.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/17/12 1:02pm

It Takes a Village

wpid-2012-07-17-11.54.07.jpg

Purple People Eaten: NYU Reduces Greenwich Village Campus 20 Percent

Update (1:46):The zoning subcommittee passed the modified proposal unanimously, while the full land-use committee supported it by a vote of 19-1, with Councilman Charles Barron the lone no-vote.

The land-use committee meeting is still going on, with a vote due at some point this afternoon, but NYU has just revealed their deal with the City Council and local rep Margaret Chin to reduce the size of its expanded campus on the two superblocks south of Washington Square park. The project will be downsized 20 percent overall, with a 26 percent reduction in above ground space. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/17/12 9:00am

It Takes a Village

A towering challenge. (Docomomo)

Too Little in the Middle: NYU Faculty Propose Last Minute Alternative to Greenwich Village Expansion

Later today, within the next hour or two, the City Council’s zoning subcommittee is expected to unveil a compromise that it has reached with New York University on its ambitious and controversial plan to build 2.2 million square feet of facilities on two blocks the school owns south of Washington Square Park. Whatever form that takes, be it shorter buildings, fewer buildings, maybe even though almost certainly not no buildings, it will be the final deal for NYU’s 2031 expansion plan.

The faculty of NYU know this full well, and a good many of them dread it. Already 36 departments or divisions at the university have come out against the plan, and even as they realized there was little likelihood of stopping the project in the short-term, a faculty coalition came up with its own plan anyway, releasing it on the same day as the university collects its prize.

“No one knows NYU’s space needs better than we do,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a media and culture professor who is one of the leading faculty opponents of the expansion plan. Read More

By The Editors 7/11/12 9:55am

opinion

It’s Called Free Enterprise

The City Council has decided that there are just too many banks on the Upper West Side.

As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia might have asked, what’s next? Will the Council tell Starbucks to move some of its stores a little to the east, or north? Will the Council set a limit on the number of greengrocers in the neighborhood?

And why stop at the Upper West Side? Why not regulate for the entire city? Surely the Upper West Side is not so special, not so—dare one say it—elite that it is the only neighborhood deserving of special protections against banks, coffee shops, greengrocers, fast-food joints and other such grievous assaults on urban life. Read More