City Planning’s predictions as to the outcome of neighborhood rezonings will be put under the microscope if a number of bills sponsored by Council Member Francisco Moya become law.
The bills would require city agencies to review past neighborhood rezonings to see how accurate City Planning’s projections were with what took place on the ground in following years.
The bills come at a time when there have been a number of neighborhood rezonings—where existing residents have voiced concern about being displaced due to gentrification– and instances where City Planning’s projections have been found to be way off.
For instance, City Planning’s projections were proven wrong when it rezoned a 37-block area in 2001 in the Court Square/Queens Plaza area. The city anticipated, according to its Environmental Impact Statement in 2001, that no more than 300 residential units would be built in the rezoned area by 2010, according to a report released by The Municipal Art Society of New York last year. In 2010, there were 800 residential units and by 2018 almost 10,000 units—with more coming.
With each neighborhood rezoning, the city goes through an environment review process, called the City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR), to identify the likely outcome.
Based on the CEQR manual, the city must evaluate the impact of a rezoning on land use, traffic, air quality, open space, schools, socioeconomics, among other items. City Planning studies these impacts and makes projections that go into an Environmental Impact Statement, which the public relies on when it undergoes the ULURP public review process.
City Planning works with other city agencies, such as the School Construction Authority, Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, to produce an Environmental Impact Statement. The agencies provide guidance based on City Planning’s calculations.
However, the city is not held accountable for its predictions and legislators want that to change. There is no mandate requiring officials to re-examine their projections.
Here's more unaccountability:
Hunters Point developers for parcel C given the green light to build their towers higher and higher
Developers have released new designs for Parcel C of the ongoing Hunters Point South development, a shift that will result in the two planned towers to rise significantly higher than expected along the
Long Island City waterfront in order to accommodate the complex infrastructure running below the ground along with a recently planned school for the site.
The two residential towers, referred to as “north” and “south” will rise to 55 stories, or 550 feet, and 44 stories, or 440 feet, respectively. The north tower’s new design is 14 stories higher than previously planned, and the south tower will see an additional nine stories, up from 35 stories in the previous plan.
The developer, TF Cornerstone, aims to break ground in June 2018.
The two towers will be flush against the perimeters of the parcel, as will the newly incorporated elementary school, resulting in cleared-out space in the middle of the site, where no built structures will rise, save for a food pavilion with outdoor seating amidst greenery and public art installations.
The changes were revealed during Community Board 2’s Land Use meeting Wednesday night. Jaclyn Sachs, a senior planner at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and John
McMillan, director of Planning for TF Cornerstone, said that they had to redesign the two towers so they wouldn’t disturb power lines, an Amtrak tunnel, and other infrastructure running below the site.
Furthermore, easement holders such as the New York Power Authority and Amtrak, wanted unobstructed access to the site.
Sachs added that while the New York Power Authority and Amtrak and other easement holders were part of initial conversations about the development, it wasn’t until a specific proposal for the parcel was put out by TF Cornerstone that easement holders preferences for an undisturbed center became clear.
TF Cornerstone also had to incorporate an elementary school on the parcel, which was not part of the original plan, after the city pushed for its addition during the developer’s redesign. The school will be 34,000 square-feet, with 572 seats, and have a ground level playground directed toward the center of the site.
“This was not an easy thing to do,” Sachs said, adding that parcel C is the largest and most complex of the parcels on the 30-acre Hunters Point South development.
This obviously got permitted because it contains, ahem, "affordable housing", which as we have been told ad nauseum that it can only be achieved if market rate and luxury housing get built also. Like the nearby "zipper building":
The Zipper Building, a new luxury condominium development in Hunters Point, has officially placed all 41 of its units on the market.
The available condos, located inside the converted and expanded zipper factory at 5-33 48th Ave., range from studios to four-bedrooms. The units begin at $650,000 and go up to $2.5 million.
“The Zipper Building will complement the budding Hunters Point neighborhood, which is in the midst of a real estate boom,” said Eric Benaim, CEO of listing brokerage Modern Spaces.
And the behemoth at Court Square,
The first units have hit the market in the 67-story, 802-unit building that is going up in Court Square.
Twenty-units are now available in the condo, which will be the tallest building in Queens when it is complete. The listing prices for those units now on the market range from $660,400 for a studio to $2,325,610 for a three-bedroom.
The development, called the Skyline Tower and located at 23-15 44th Drive, is across the street from One Court Square and is being marketed as offering spectacular views and more than 20,000 square feet of luxury amenities.
The condos offer floor-to-ceiling windows, modern appliances, and marble-adorned bathrooms.
The initial listings are in floors four through 36. The developer anticipates that buyers in the bottom 36 floors will be able to move in by the end of 2020, around the same time that the Dept. of Buildings is expected to issue a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy.
Residents will be able to move into the higher floors by the end of 2021, when the TCO is expected to be issued. The upper floors will tower over the Citigroup building.
Eric Benaim, the CEO of Modern Spaces, anticipates that it will take four years to sell all of the units. Modern Spaces is the exclusive marketing and sales firm for the project.
Apparently, the city and the real estate industry that truly runs it is building for speculative, well, hypothetical residents to supply instead of and for the present demand of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who are having difficulty finding affordable housing right now.
6 comments:
An Enviro Impact Statement (EIS) is created by the person who wants the change to go through - not City Planning. There is a public comment period - usually with crappy advance notice, often during working hours, and any feedback is generally disregarded. If City Planning were adequately staffed to perform a genuine EIS, with public input during the crafting of the EIS as well as after, we MIGHT see some changes - if the community can get active before the bitch-n-moan over the outcome.
You're too late Moya. Where were you 10 years ago when all these projects were being developed on papre.
No, we don't evaluate. We take the money and run. Plus tax everybody to death.
So, wazagodu? Tear them down cuz plazexuns wuz wrong?
It is amazing how these plans work. They got the plans all rolled up on the shelf and when some funding shows up, they draw lots which one they gonna submit. Fifty years old, all the assumptions expired, but heck, it's a plan, and at least the money is real.
Planing Department? Planning Department? We don't need no freeking Planning Dept.
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