By Matt Chaban 11/27/12 1:32pm

In the Rezone

Towers will be slightly smaller than initially proposed following an agreement between the borough president and Trinity. (Trinity Real Estate)

Hudson Square Hallelujah: Scott Stringer Approves Trinity Rezoning with Shorter Towers, More Open Space

The new towers in Hudson Square are going to look more, well, square.

That is after Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wrangled a deal with Trinity Church to reduce the size of new towers as part of a rezoning the rectors are undertaking in the formerly industrial neighborhood just north of the Holland Tunnel. This was among the concessions extracted by Mr. Stringer before giving the project his conditional approval, which he signed yesterday as part of the rezoning’s public review process.

The buildings will be a bit wider, though, so as not to lose their density, but they can only rise to 290 feet, rather than 320 feet. Stocky towers instead of slender spires, basically. But that is in many ways fitting with the areas already stolid building stock of former printing plants, which typified the neighborhood for a century before it became a popular haven for Soho expats and minor celebrities (hello James Gandolfini and Lou Reed!).  Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/12/12 10:44am

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

This plan is so fetch. (Wikimedia Commons)

Like a Good Hipster, Bushwick Wants an Unconventional Rezoning

The joke about hipsters (well, one of many, many jokes about hipsters) is that they are pioneers, non-conformists. But out in Bushwick, they are following in the footsteps of more than a hundred of the city’s neighborhoods: they want a rezoning.

A stones throw (not the hip hop record label) from the the McKibben Lofts and Roberta’s, just across Flushing Avenue, a developer wants to transform the old Rheingold Brewery into a 10-building housing complex, a plan that has been kicking around since at least 2008. But according to The Wall Street Journal, this is Bushwick, so the rezoning has to be different, it has to be cool, with it, or at least that’s what Councilwoman Diana Reyna wants. Read More

By Jonah Wolf 9/27/12 3:08pm

In the Rezone

SPURA springs eternal. (NYC EDC)

Hip Hip SPURA! Land-Use Committee Approves LES Development After 40-Year Slog

It took 40 years, but the transformation of the Seward Park urban Renewal Area, better known as SPURA, may finally be here. While everyone seemed excited at the prospect of this finally happening, the opinions were far from unanimous about what the city came up with for its plan for the seven undeveloped acres south of Delancy Street on four forlorn parking lots.

But there was unanimity today, when the City Council’s land-use committee approved the 1.65 million-square-foot plan for SPURA by a vote of 16-0. Attendees of last week’s public hearing on the development south of the Williamsburg Bridge will be relieved to hear that 50 additional affordable housing units (offset by another 50 at market rate prices) have been added to the project, for a total of 1,000 units, half of which will be affordable, half not. The administration also agreed to that now de rigueur piece of rezoning negotiations, a new public school.

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 Matt Chaban 7/12/12 6:00am

Best Laid Plans

6 Photos

Eastside Sweet Spot

How About Another Empire State Building or Two? City Outlines Mega Midtown East Rezoning

It’s the moment developers, planning geeks, and perhaps the entire city without knowing it, has been waiting for all year: the unveiling of the city’s plans, first hinted at in the mayor’s State of the City address, to remake the face of Midtown Manhattan.

It is big. No, really big. Bigger than almost anything the city has ever seen. Empire State Building big. While that will not be the case for every tower that is eventually built through the program, it could be for at least a few. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/28/12 8:25am

Sugar Coated

The old—and in the way—plan. (CPC Resources)

Knocking Over Domino: Two Trees Mulls Overhauling Massive Williamsburg Development, Including Reducing Affordable Units

Exactly two years ago tomorrow, the City Council approved a sweeping $1.4 billion redevelopment plan for the Domino Sugar refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront. One of the biggest concerns at the time (of which there were many) was that the grand promise made by developer CPC Resources to make 30 percent of the project’s 2,200 units would never be realized.

Nowhere in the zoning resolution was this mandated, even though it was the marquee feature of the 11-acre development, along with promises of waterfront access, top-notch open space and a school. The developer could build no affordable housing, though this would mean a smaller project, or use the city’s inclusionary housing program to gain a bonus for bigger buildings in exchange for a promise to make 20 percent of any units affordable. Anything beyond that was a promise, one even CPC Resources did not have to keep. The firm had signed a memorandum of understanding saying it would follow through on this promise, but in no why was it legally binding.

That is why when it was announced last week that Jed Walentas and his Two Trees development company is in contract the Domino site for about $180 million (three-times what CPC had paid for it in 2004, but also less an arduous and contentious public approval process), there were widespread concerns that Mr. Walentas would not live up to the promises of his predecessors. In a recent interview, the developer admitted as much.

“Basically, that analysis is correct,” Mr. Walentas told The Observer. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/27/12 11:00am

Best Laid Plans

Picture 8

Faulty Towers: Midtown Needs a Makeover, with Twice as Tall Towers, But Can Mayor Bloomberg Get It Right?

It was but one line in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s State of the City address in January, but it could prove to be one of the biggest of his dozen years in office.

“In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs,” the mayor said from the stage inside Morris High School in the Bronx.

Hizzoner spent more time talking about Cornell’s Roosevelt Island tech campus, keeping the Hunt’s Point Produce Market from moving across the Hudson to Jersey and efforts to further expand the blue-collar workforce on the waterfront. Even the redevelopment of nearby East Fordham Road and Webster Avenue got equal billing with these vague pronouncements about “the area around Grand Central.”

Despite the scant mention, it turns out that for an administration that has never shied away from big plans, this may be one of the biggest projects yet. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/06/12 11:37am

It Takes a Village

Those towers? Not quite so big. (NYU)

NY-Phew: City Planning Commission Approves NYU’s Village Expansion With Some Changes

Now the NYU plan is perfect, at least in the eyes of planning potentate Amanda Burden and the rest of the rest of the City Planning Commission. About an hour ago, the commission conditionally  and near unanimously approved NYU’s contentious expansion plans for its two superblocks just south of Washington Square Park.

The commission is requiring the university to modify its 2 million square foot expansion in a number of meaningful ways, though the outlines of the new mini campus remain largely intact. There was one dissenting vote for the modified plan, from Commissioner Michelle de La Uz, who is the appointee of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/10/12 4:41pm

It Takes a Village

Greenberg Traurig goes to bat for NYU's greenspace. (NYU)

NYU Brings Out the Big Guns: University Hires Ex-Council Members Ed Wallace and Melinda Katz to Lobby on Village Expansion

New York University is working fervently to win support for its major campus expansion in Greenwich Village. The school has lined up the support of the mayor, the real estate industry, construction unions, local businesses, even most of the city’s editorial boards, including a powerful vote of confidence from The Times. Still, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has expressed skepticism toward the project, which he would like to see reduced in size, and the community panned the rezoning outright.

To help makes its case, NYU recently retained Ed Wallace and Melinda Katz, two land-use attorneys who have helped shape a number of important development projects as they wended their way through public review—not least because both of them also once spent time as members of the  City Council, the body that will have the ultimate say on NYU’s rezoning. Read More