“The public discussions about the City Charter offer an opportunity to rethink the way the city does land use review and planning, and fill the gaps left open because community boards don’t have a level playing field. We shouldn’t let backroom dealing trump the Uniform Land Use Review process, let zoning trump planning, or let community boards down.” Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning.
The City Charter revision commission will be looking at something vital to the city’s future: land use and the process through which property owners, residents and the government decide what gets built in New York City.
Side agreements to land use decisions have proliferated without disclosure or enforcement.
Earth Day -- April 22 , 2010 - will mark the third anniversary of PlaNYC2030, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's self-proclaimed "long-term sustainability plan." While the city has taken many steps toward the plan's goal of "a greener greater New York," particularly in energy conservation, one gaping hole remains in the plan.
PlaNYC2030 left out any role for the city's hundreds of neighborhoods, 59 community boards, and the countless civic, community and environmental groups that care about the future of the city. It was a top-down plan, conceived at City Hall with minimal input, and it was never approved as an official plan. In the long term this will only undermine the ability to sustain the plan itself, and both implement and improve it.
The plan now stands at a critical juncture, Rohit Aggarwala, director of the Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, recently announced his resignation, and the city's budget situation and the overall economic situation have delayed and even derailed some of its initiatives. With Aggarwala's departure and the convening of a commission to review the City Charter, now is the time to fill the gap that excluded neighborhoods. An updated PlaNYC2030 could then be reviewed and voted on by community boards, borough presidents, the City Planning Commission, and City Council, as required in the City Charter.
An as-of-right development does not require any zoning change or official land use action by the City Planning Commission or Board of Standards and Appeals.
An as-of-right 500-unit apartment building in Manhattan can result in more traffic and noise in a neighborhood that’s already overburdened, and there will be no environmental review. Many millions of square feet can be built as-of-right in the city.
This is an example of an as-of-right building. It is located at 535 West End Avenue and it is 6 stories taller than the building adjacent to it on West 86th Street.
WHAT ARE AIR RIGHTS OR HOW DEVELOPERS CAN MANIPULATE EXISTING ZONING.
Unused, transferable development rights (TDR) are also called air rights. If a 10-story building could have been built as a 20-story building, you have 10 stories of unused floor area rights to sell. A developer of a site can buy the air rights from adjoining buildings and add the additional square footage to the new building. Or one could purchase air rights from a landmarked structure across the street.
Developers who include affordable housing in their plans, can build larger build­ings than zoning would otherwise allow. City Planning says the aver­age bonus is about 20 percent more square footage. The affordable units do not have be included in the on-site building.
• And if a developer includes an Inclusionary Housing Bonus as part of his project with on-site units and receives approvals from the local Community Board and the City Planning Commission based on that commitment, and then changes the approved plan, the developer would lose the Inclusionary Housing Bonus but would still have to build the affordable units.
Why is that important? In November 2003, in Community Board 7, the developer of the site of a former gas station site on the northwest corner of West 59th Street and West End Avenue told CB7, that a rental building (31 stories, 350 feet) would be built with 300 market-rate units and 75 subsidized units (25%) which would be included in the rental building. CB7 approved. City Planning approved. Then the rental building became a condominium tower of 197 units. The Housing Bonus units (20%) were built or rehabilitated in CB4.
In New York City, any proposed land use changes that come before the City Planning Commission and City Council must first undergo an environmental review, and if they are considered to have a potential negative impact, the developer must prepare a detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
The problem is the EIS must only address a problem. The solution or mitigation of the problem may not work or ever be implemented.
EIS's which can be hundreds of pages is written in arcane terminology. The Community Boards which have the responsibility of analyzing an EIS before voting on it an advisory capacity do not have the financial resources needed to do a thorough analysis. But they do try their best.
What is the Bureau of Standards & Appeals (BSA)? The BSA is a quasi-judicial body created to address unique circumstances not anticipated by the city zoning law.
It has 5 members, all appointed by the mayor for a 6 year term.
Can BSA decisions create problems for a neighborhood? Yes! Here's how.
"BSA can grant exceptions to the zoning law known as variances, if property owners can show that they meet the following five conditions.
5) the change being requested is the minimum necessary to relieve the owner of their hardship.
"The main problem is that there's no limit to the variances that the board can dole out in any neighborhood. As a result, entire neighborhoods have been developed in ways not allowed in the zoning.
"The BSA, although not a planning body, engages in ad hoc planning, or planning by variance.
"Planning on land use belongs to the City Planning Commission and its support agency, the Department of City Planning.
"Unfortunately there are too many examples where zoning rules get changed to accommodate development that is already taking place.
"Out of 137 requests for zoning variances across the city filed with the board during those two years and decided by April 2003, all but 10 were granted. That 93 percent success rate for developers was an increase of about 10 percentage points since the 1970's.
"As a result of BSA's actions,, the City Planning Commission, which is charged with overseeing city zoning, is often confronted with de facto changes, and redraws zoning maps to match decisions by the board, a case of the tail wagging the dog, planners and other critics of the standards and appeals board say.
What types of properties can be designated?
The Landmarks Law requires that, to be designated, a potential landmark must be at least 30 years old and must possess "a special character or special historical or aesthetic interest or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the city, state, or nation."
A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to requiring the landmarks preservation commission to issue notice to the department of buildings when a property is under consideration for designation as a landmark, requiring the department of buildings to issue notice to the landmarks preservation commission when permit applications for buildings under consideration for designation as a landmark are received, and revoking permits previously issued by the department of buildings when a property is designated as a landmark.
GVSHP found that as many as 17% of the buildings in designated historic districts in Greenwich Village were NOT marked as such in Department of Buildings records, leaving these buildings vulnerable to receiving City approval for inappropriate alteration, construction, or even demolition that should never be permitted for landmarked buildings. GVSHP reported this disturbing problem to city agencies, but in light of the seemingly broad and systemic problem, they also asked the City Council to investigate and conduct oversight hearings on the matter.
When sites or buildings are given landmark protections, they are supposed to be listed as such in the Department of Buildings’ (DOB) Buildings Information System. This ensures that if someone applies for permits to make any change to a landmarked building, rather than receiving permits to do so from DOB, the applicant is sent to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), which will then hold public hearings on any proposed major changes to the building(s), and decide whether or not to allow them. Demolition of or major alterations to landmarked properties are rarely allowed by the LPC.
Once on site, go to menu on left-hand side under City Planning. Scroll down to Zoning, it is the last item in that menu.
Most residential zoning on the west side on Manhattan is a R10A. See below.