Like rats fleeing a sinking ship

From DNA Info:

Within a week of Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration announcing record-breaking achievements in affordable housing, the top two officials responsible for his housing initiatives are stepping down.

Department of City Planning Director and City Planning Commission Chair Carl Weisbrod is stepping down to chair the Trust for Governors Island, and Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been will return to her previous job teaching at New York University and directing NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

Weisbrod will be replaced by Marisa Lago, currently the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development.

Been will be replaced by Economic Development Corporation president and CEO Maria Torres-Springer, de Blasio announced Tuesday.

James Patchett, chief of staff to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, will succeed Torres-Springer at EDC, an agency which Glen oversees.

Weisbrod leaving City Planning

From the Observer:

Carl Weisbrod, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s chairman of the City Planning Commission, will exit his role overseeing the municipal zoning revisions at the heart of the administration’s affordable housing agenda in February, the city announced late this afternoon.

Just weeks after Administration for Children’s Services Commissioner Gladys Carrión resigned amid scandal, Weisbrod revealed he will abdicate his post to become chairman of the Trust for Governor’s Island, a city-owned non-profit. Former Empire State Development Corporation President Marisa Lago will replace him at the head of the 13-member body, seven of whom are mayoral appointees, and the remainder picked by the borough presidents and Public Advocate.

Flushing West dead

From the Crains:

The de Blasio administration abruptly scrapped plans to rezone a portion of Flushing, Queens, last week in response to problems with the proposal. The neighborhood was set to be one of 15 areas that would be targeted for residential development in order to advance the mayor’s affordable-housing agenda.

On Friday, City Councilman Peter Koo, who represents the area, sent a letter to the Department of City Planning outlining his objections to turning 11 industrial blocks between the polluted Flushing Creek and the terminus of the No. 7 train into a new neighborhood, Flushing West, that would include retail, open space and affordable apartments. That same day, the head of the department wrote back that the city shared many of his concerns, and would withdraw its plan.

"We will turn our attention and our priority to planning efforts to other neighborhoods," wrote Carl Weisbrod, head of the planning department.

The about-face means that the city will have to look for another neighborhood to be part of the 15 rezonings Mayor Bill de Blasio promised in the spring of 2014, when he announced his Housing New York plan. So far, the city has approved its first overhaul in Brooklyn's East New York and has announced similar intentions for a handful of other areas in the city.

A rezoned Flushing West would have potentially sprouted 1,600 apartments, affordable and market-rate. But Koo envisioned a number of complications along with strains on the area’s infrastructure and transportation, some of which resonated with city officials.

Ok, so does Shulman have to give back her grant money now?

City wants seniors to live in sardine cans, not have cars

Vicki Been

From AM-NY:

Relaxing requirements to have parking lots at senior and affordable residences within reach of subways would free up space and money to build apartments, city officials testified Wednesday at a second day of hearings on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing plan.

“Three unnecessary parking spaces are the equivalent of two units of affordable housing,” Housing Commissioner Vicki Been said. Officials said spots in parking structures can cost $50,000 to build, taking into account design, materials and labor.

But City Council members from the outer reaches of Queens and Brooklyn challenged how so-called transit zones — where parking requirements for developers would be waived — were drawn. They said public transportation options and other amenities must be improved before the parking is taken away.

“Senior citizens and other residents are not sardines,” Mark Treyger, a Democrat representing parts of southern Brooklyn that have seen bus line cuts, told Newsday. “They need to be mobile, they need to get to doctors’ appointments, they need to live out the golden years of their lives.”

From DNA Info:

The minimum size for a senior would be 275 square feet, which Queens Councilman Donovan Richards suggested is too small.

"I just know from my own grandmother, she couldn’t fit her hats in an apartment that size," he said.

Brooklyn Councilman David Greenfield flagged the issue of allowing senior developments up to 65 feet tall in low-density residential districts that currently have a maximum building height of 35 feet.

The residents of those neighborhoods "want their small little homes with their little driveways," Greenfield said. "They're not looking necessarily for that influx."

City Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod indicated he was open to negotiation, but Been balked.

"I completely understand the concern. I also just want to point out that seniors come from every neighborhood," both low rise and high rise, she said. "They want to stay in their neighborhoods but they don't want to be trapped in a building that doesn't have an elevator."

Greenfield suggested the administration require a special Board of Standards and Appeals permit for tall buildings in those low-slung neighborhoods so "there would be more review."

Been objected to adding in a community board review process.

"I feel very passionately about this, because I have to look seniors in the eye and say, 'I'm sorry, but we have a waiting list of seven years. That's probably longer than you'll be alive,'" she said.

City planning holds sham hearing; freezes out the public

From Historic Districts Council:

"Were you left outside, too? The Historic Districts Council, NY Landmarks Conservancy, MAS, Friends of the Upper East Side, Landmark West!, and the Society for the Architecture of the City were unable to testify at the City Planning Commission’s public hearing for ZQA/MIH this morning because the room was at capacity by 9:15 am--the hearing commenced at 9:00 am. By 10:30 am, representatives of City Planning explained that attendees who wished to speak could choose to wait outside with no guarantee of entry. Even worse, the City Planning Commission has not given any indication that they will hold additional hearings to ensure the whole of the public will be heard.

This is a public hearing, not a line on Black Friday. ALL of the public should be able to speak, not just those who got in line several strategic hours earlier than everyone else. There must be allowances made so that all the people of New York can have a voice. Please send a letter to Carl Weisbrod, Chair of NYC City Planning Commission and tell him that this morning’s situation was untenable and that our voices deserve to be in the record on this unprecedented rezoning proposal. Everyone deserves a chance to be heard and not be left out in the cold."

______________________

I submitted a protest letter and received the following reply at 8pm:

"Thank you for your message regarding the ongoing public hearing on the MIH/ZQA text amendment proposals.

We are sorry that you encountered long lines in the morning. We appreciate your interest in appearing before the Commission to testify on these important initiatives. Please note that the the City Planning Commission hearing on these items is ongoing, and the Commission will continue to hear every speaker who signs up and is present to speak.

There are no lines at this point, and we encourage you to come back and sign up to speak. We are continuing to post the Speaker # on our Twitter account and on our website.

If you would like to submit written testimony at any time prior to the vote, written comments on the DEIS will be considered until Monday, December 28 and written comments on the application may be sent up to the date of the Commission vote. You can mail written comments to:

CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
Calendar Information Office - 31st Floor
120 Broadway, New York NY 10271"
______________________

Familiar government story:

• Call a public hearing
• Call your cronies to reserve prime speaking slots
• Schedule hearing for a room that's too small to accommodate crowd
• Sit and laugh as opponents get frustrated and leave
• Claim that you were available to listen to all the testimony and there was minimal opposition
• Enjoy the lazy media's reporting that suggests that suddenly everyone loves what you proposed
• Use this as justification to proceed as planned

Weisbrod wants to change physical culture establishment law

From Crains:

All gyms, spas, martial-arts schools, massage studios and health clubs looking to set up shop in New York City must get something called a physical culture establishment permit, which was created in the late 1970s to stem the rise of seedy massage parlors in Times Square.

Today, however, that means companies hoping to expand quickly find themselves mired in red tape and lawyers' fees as they navigate the city's byzantine bureaucracy. The permits require companies to prove they will not have a negative effect on a neighborhood by divulging their business plans, filing applications with a host of agencies and answering questions at a series of public hearings, starting with the local community board.

On Nov. 8, 1978, Carl Weisbrod, then director of the Midtown Enforcement Project, testified before the City Planning Commission and urged it to adopt the permit, which would bring to an end a moratorium on new health establishments that had been in place for years. By excluding less-desirable businesses from the definition of a physical culture establishment—and then requiring the ones that did meet the requirements to be vetted by the Board of Standards and Appeals—he felt it would make it harder for illicit businesses to operate within the city's borders.

"Zoning has proved to be the most effective tool in closing down houses of prostitution masquerading as massage parlors," he was noted as saying in a commission report.

Now Mr. Weisbrod is head of the City Planning Commission and is taking another look at the law he helped create, spurred in part by a report from the Department of Small Business Services earlier this year that said the permits were needlessly burdensome and a hindrance to opening more health facilities (which the city could arguably use more of: More than half of adult New Yorkers are overweight or obese).

"Physical culture establishment permitting was very effective in addressing a problem that existed at the time," a City Planning spokeswoman said. "And consequently, we are working with our sister agencies to determine whether it should be eliminated or modified."

REBNY and City Planning continue damage control effort

Deconstructing REBNY-speak in Crains:

In an effort to tamp down the hysteria, city planning czar Carl Weisbrod extended the comment period in April and this month wrote a letter conveying the goals of the proposal, which he described as "promoting affordable housing and better quality buildings." Last night his agency posted profiles to clarify what the rezoning would mean for each of the city's 59 community districts. And it is chopping 10 feet off height limits proposed for some residential districts so that 95% of medium- and high-density contextually zoned areas would see height limits increase by five feet or less, or by one or two stories if affordable housing is included.

Contextual zoning protections were strengthened during the Bloomberg administration to prevent out-of-scale development, such as a six-story apartment building in the middle of a block of two-story homes. The effect was to limit the potential for more density across much of the city, which was already coping with housing growth insufficient to meet increasing demand to live in the city.

Contextual zoning does not limit the potential for more density across much of the city. First of all, only about 17% of the city was contextually rezoned over the last decade. Second, much of that was balanced through MASSIVE UPZONINGS in the Far West Side, Williamsburg/Greenpoint, Jamaica, LIC and other areas.

While the Bloomberg rezoning pushed up property values in the downzoned areas, tenants of market-rate housing saw rents climb. Housing costs have drastically outstripped wage increases for low-income and working-class New Yorkers in the last decade.

The contextual rezonings DID NOT push up property values in downzoned areas. There was no net change in property values. Rents are climbing due to an unregulated market of housing.

But the contextual zoning does more than just freeze the scale of neighborhoods. In many cases it makes it difficult for architects to fit all the square footage permitted by zoning into building envelopes constricted by height limits. Builders have compensated by making ceilings low or excluding affordable units.

This statement is straight out of REBNY, literally. They have to make ceilings low??? No: they can make ceilings the 8' minimum or they can raise them up if they choose.

On built-out blocks in neighborhoods such as Park Slope, the effect of the de Blasio plan, unveiled in February, would be minimal—first, because there’s no money to be made by tearing down a building to erect one that is five feet taller, and second, because historic districts are under the jurisdiction of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is not in the habit of approving the demolition of stately row houses.

Most of Park Slope is NOT landmarked. And that extra five feet could be the difference in building an extra floor on existing buildings.

Take a look at the illustration above. This gives you an idea of what the administration is hoping to accomplish with this proposed rezoning. Instead of "existing" being a low-rise senior facility, imagine a row of 4-5 low-rise homes. They will be bought up by developers and replaced with 65' monster buildings under the guise of "affordable senior housing". It's all bunk and I'm glad there are some people in this town that are calling BDB and his crew out on it.

Deconstructing Weisbrod-speak

I had to chuckle at this Queens Chronicle op-ed by City Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod, defending how he is planning to force low and medium density outer borough neighborhoods to their knees.

Paragraph 3 is a lie, plain and simple.

"Notwithstanding the misperceptions perpetuated in last week’s Queens Chronicle editorial (“Save Queens from City Hall,” April 23) we are not proposing growth or major change. Let’s get the facts straight: No upzoning is proposed for Queens neighborhoods, and certainly no skyscrapers, under our Zoning for Quality and Affordability proposal. No changes at all are being proposed to the size and shape of buildings in one- and two-family neighborhoods."

So which is it: no upzoning or no skyscrapers? It's such a lie. Huge portions of Queens will be affected by this. And what's the definition of a one- and two-family neighborhood? Is it an area that has one and two family houses or zoned for them?

Paragraph 4:

"Instead, our proposal simply allows buildings to incorporate affordable and senior housing, to be better designed and to fit quality ground-floor retail space where permitted. The resulting buildings will fit more graciously into their neighborhoods, and facilitate a better quality of life, better enabling residents to shop within walking distance of their homes. The small incremental height proposed in our zoning text change for multifamily districts does not permit a single additional square foot for market-rate housing."

Who says? I find it absolutely galling that Weisbrod can make a blanket statement like this.

Paragraph 5:

"Why are we proposing this now? Since 1916, the rules for how we build have changed as the city has changed. Each change brought its own challenges. The city’s “contextual” zoning regulations, created in the mid-1980s in response to disruptive “tower-in-the-park” developments, are unintentionally forcing new buildings to fit within inflexible envelopes, leading to bad design and high costs that hinder housing affordability. Moreover, developers cannot take advantage of zoning incentives for affordable housing, leaving those units on the cutting room floor."

Ok. So now we get to the heart of the matter. The developers have their panties in a bunch because they aren't able to build as big and charge as much as they want because contextual zoning stops them from doing so. The last sentence about affordable housing not being built is laughable.

Paragraph 6:

"Architects and nonprofit organizations that support the city’s housing and neighborhoods have identified aspects of these dated rules as an impediment to both quality housing and affordable housing. We agree. The City’s Zoning for Quality and Affordability proposal tweaks the zoning code for medium- and higher-density districts to permit property owners the flexibility to build what they are already allowed to build."

Translation: the Building industry told us what we need to change so they can increase their profits. We agree.

Paragraphs 7 and 8 are just ridiculous. I'm not even going to comment on them.

Paragraph 9:

"Only 5 percent of residents of low-income senior housing near transit own cars. Yet current regulations require costly parking that often reduces the amount of desperately needed senior housing that can be provided, and yields no benefit to the overwhelming majority of its residents. Developing housing for seniors with low incomes is not profitable. It requires public subsidy. Precious public dollars that support much-needed housing for low-income seniors can go further when they’re not used to subsidize unnecessary parking spaces, which cost more to build than it costs to buy a car."

This proposal looks to eliminate or severely reduce parking for *ALL* senior housing.

Last Paragraph:

"It’s important to note that this proposal is still in the early stages. Although April 30 is the last day for public comment on the scope of the environmental review, we have not completed the proposed zoning text, nor begun the official land use review process, which provides multiple opportunities for public input. We appreciate how much communities care about issues that affect them, and we welcome their engagement. But the public discourse will be most constructive only if the facts are clear to all."

Translation: Don't worry. Whatever you've written, we're going to ignore it anyway. Suckers!

Then to put the cherry on top of this shit sundae, we have our borough historian spouting the same nonsense in letters to the editor, and he signs it with his official title. Blech!

No eminent domain plans for affordable housing (right now)

From CBS New York:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious redevelopment plans won’t involve the use of eminent domain to acquire property, Planning Director Carl Weisbrod said Tuesday.

The mayor’s planning priorities include building more affordable housing and rezoning a five-block stretch of midtown Manhattan adjacent to Grand Central Terminal.

“I don’t see us using eminent domain in a broad way,” Weisbrod told a real estate conference hosted by Crain’s New York Business. “I don’t believe that it’s going to be in our toolbox.”

Spending to be coordinated with growth

From Crains:

The city's capital spending will be more "thoughtful and coordinated" than it was under the Bloomberg administration to ensure that neighborhoods grow "rationally," City Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod promised Thursday.

City agencies' capital budget requests are in and are being reviewed by the de Blasio administration through the lenses of "equity, growth, resiliency, sustainability and geographic coordination," Mr. Weisbrod added during a speech at a Citizens Budget Commission breakfast.

The idea is to accommodate the population growth that city planners will encourage in underutilized areas near mass transit. Capital spending will be coordinated with residential development so that any influx of residents does not strain schools, open space, sewers, the transportation network, libraries, the streetscape and other public infrastructure.

Does anyone truly believe this?

What passes for award-winning architecture in Queens

From the Queens Courier:

The Queens Chamber of Commerce hosted its 99th annual Building Awards on Thursday, recognizing architecture and design of new buildings around the borough.

Out of 100 total entries, just 19 new construction, interior and rehabilitated use projects were selected as winners from various categories, including public use, office space, commercial and residential.

City Planning Director Carl Weisbrod was the keynote speaker at the event in the LaGuardia Marriott Hotel. The Chamber’s President’s Award was given to College Point-based developer Mattone Group.

In terms of new construction, the modern, glassy, three-story commercial building by K.O.H. Architecture at 215-15 Northern Blvd. in Bayside was among the winners. The building is home to a Tiger Schulmann, a Pizza Hut and a day care.

I heard that Frank Lloyd Crap is jealous.

Tomorrow's borough board meeting sounds like fun

From Progress Queens:

Borough President Katz will host a meeting of the Queens Borough Board on Monday, Dec. 1, at 5:30 p.m. at Queens Borough Hall to discuss large-scale real estate development of Queens.

Scheduled to be discussed during the meeting is an agenda item titled, "Planning for the Future of Queens – an Update on Strategic Initiatives." Carl Weisbrod, a director of the New York City Department of City Planning and Chairman of the New York City Planning Commission, is expected to address the meeting, according to the Borough President Katz's media advisory.

The Queens Borough Board meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. Monday evening, and the meeting will take place in the Borough President’s Conference Room of Queens Borough Hall, 120-55 Queens Boulevard, 2nd Floor.

Queens finds itself in the cross-hairs of real estate developers and government officials for major development, none of which fully addresses the need for the creation of large-scale stock of affordable housing. Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-New York City) announced that the city would target Flushing, Queens, for zone-busting development, and the city's Economic Development Corporation has expressed interest in exploiting Jamaica, Queens, for rapid development, as well. Flushing is encompassed in Queens Community Boards 7, 8, and 11, whilst Jamaica is encompassed in Queens Community Boards 8 and 12. Already, a group has formed in Jamaica "to build relationships with private companies" to facilitate real estate investments in Jamaica.

Residents in Queens, including long-term immigrant residents, have opposed the conversions of hotel facilities into permanent homeless shelters, like the former Pan American Hotel, as seen on Oct. 3, 2014. Queens is being targeted for rapid upscale real estate development at the same time when the borough is also paradoxically being chosen as the setting for a greater share of the city's homeless shelters and for more juvenile inmate detention centers.

Separately, the city is looking at Queens for the creation of permanent homeless shelters, which is causing turmoil in bedroom communities opposed to inconveniences associated with shelters, even pitting long-term immigrant residents against newly-arrived immigrants. The city is also evaluating the need to create a permanent detention center in Queens for juvenile inmates to comply with new state regulations at the same time when federal prosecutors, in an unrelated action, have recommended to the de Blasio administration the relocation of teenage inmates away from Rikers Island, a recommendation that New York City Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens) said could be accomplished by renovating the now-vacant Queens House of Detention.

Go ahead and build, we'll pay for the amenities

From the Real Deal:

The city will shoulder a higher share of costs associated with creating public benefits such as schools and parks, in order to encourage more developers to address the affordable housing crisis, chairman of the City Planning Commission Carl Weisbrod said on a panel today.

Under the Bill de Blasio administration, Weisbrod expects to see a reversal of several decades of public policy. Whereas in the past the city required developers to pay for parks, schools and public spaces in exchange for incentives such as upzoning, the city will now take on more of that burden.

“I think we are going to see a more traditional role for what government pays for and what the private sector pays for,” Weisbrod said. “We will see government pay for schools, public investments, open spaces, that in the past few decades we did [lay] on developers.”

“We should ask the private sector to do what it does well, which is housing,” he added. The administration is, however, much to the chagrin of developers, taking away voluntary inclusionary zoning and replacing it with mandatory inclusionary zoning.

DeBlasio pushing hard for development of affordable housing

From the NY Times:

The next time a New York City developer seeks permission to replace a derelict factory with a shimmering condo tower, the heated swimming pool and sky-lit roof lounge will have to be accompanied by another amenity: affordable housing.

In the most forceful remarks yet of an administration determined to reshape the cityscape, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s top planning official declared on Friday that affordable units will be a requirement for any future real estate project requiring a zoning change from the city.

The mandate will apply not only to neighborhood-wide redevelopments, like the earlier transformation of industrial Williamsburg into a residential mecca, but also to individual projects, as when a developer needs a waiver to graft stories onto an apartment tower in Midtown.

“You can’t build one unit unless you build your share of affordable housing,” Carl Weisbrod, chairman of the City Planning Commission, told a packed room of landlords, planners and investors at a New York Law School breakfast on Friday. “You can’t build just market-rate housing, period.”

Aides to Mr. de Blasio, who has pledged to create or preserve 200,000 affordable units in the next decade, have signaled for months that mandates for developers were on the way. But Mr. Weisbrod’s comments provided the clearest glimpse yet of what the city’s plan would mean in practice for the real estate industry, which is still wary of a mayor who has presented a lofty vision for future development but has provided few details on how he plans to achieve it.

Privately, some developers expressed skepticism about the administration’s plan, fearing that the requirements would make it financially difficult to build. While few in real estate criticize the mayor publicly, Mr. Weisbrod acknowledged those concerns, saying the industry was a necessary partner.

In his speech, Mr. Weisbrod said the administration would take steps to ease the bureaucratic burden on developers, such as speeding up the public review process and rolling back other onerous regulations. And he pledged that planning officials would consider new projects on the merits when determining how many affordable units should be included.

Manufacturing and residential in the same building?

From Capital New York:

New Yorkers should think about constructing taller manufacturing facilities and whether industrial and residential property can co-exist in some places, Mayor Bill de Blasio's top planning official said on Tuesday.

“Historically, manufacturing had to be very horizontal and it's one the reasons New York City lost so many manufacturing jobs over the past 70 years—post-World War II—as manufacturing became a much more horizontal form of business,” Carl Weisbrod, the chair of the City Planning Commission, said at a summit about the future of Long Island City.

Now, technology has changed the way a lot of production is done, delivering an opportunity “to see if the city can manufacture space by going vertical for industrial use, allowing businesses to expand,” Weisbrod said during a panel discussion at the Summit, held at Museum of the Moving Image. “I believe we're beginning to look at that.”

L.I.C. has seen a tremendous construction boom in recent years that's reshaped the neighborhood. And that work continues; just this week Tishman Speyer announced plans for a development that could total 1.2 million square feet. But much of the resulting space has been residential, which provides the greatest profits. The neighborhood has struggled to attract new commercial buildings. Beyond that, its industrial facilities have been filled to the brim with a broad range of companies that now need more space.

There are number of old industrial buildings—just one subway stop from Manhattan, off the 21st-Queensbridge F-train station—that developers could eye for residential loft conversions, said Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, who also sat on the panel with Weisbrod.

“I think that we ought to be looking, should that be preserved to tech companies in the next few years may be able to go there—or creative businesses or other things,” Bowles said. “Or will it be lost to residential conversation?”

Weisbrod said that's an area where the city “might be able to look at a topography that we've really not seen much of in the city of New York, and that is modern-day manufacturing and residential in the same building, literally.”

Midtown east rezone is back on the table

From Crains:

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new timeline for the rezoning of a large swath of east midtown in Manhattan Friday, one that could stretch into 2016 but will allow for one major skyscraper project to get started in the meantime.

Under a special permit to be issued by the city and subject to public review, SL Green will build a 1.6 million-square-foot office building adjacent to Grand Central Terminal on Vanderbilt Avenue between East 42nd and East 43rd streets. The 65-story tower will be 150 feet taller than the Chrysler Building on the other side of the train station.

The project, called 1 Vanderbilt, will include indoor and outdoor public space, as well as underground connections to the subway to help relieve above-ground congestion. The public review process for the surrounding five blocks along Vanderbilt Avenue will begin this fall.

SL Green will invest more than $100 million to improve the flow of commuter traffic through Grand Central Terminal, said Marc Holliday, CEO of the development firm. But City Planning Commission Chairman Carl Weisbrod said the developer's investment in transit infrastructure will be "a lot more than $100 million," and other private firms looking to reap benefits from the rezoning will need to pony up as well.

Mr. Weisbrod confirmed two other development sites as part of the initial Vanderbilt corridor rezoning: a property on Madison Avenue owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Roosevelt Hotel on East 45th Street.

The rest of the midtown east rezoning, which was shelved last year when the Bloomberg administration officials could not get midtown Councilman Daniel Garodnick to sign on, won’t kick off until at least the spring of 2015, and will likely extend into the following year. Mr. de Blasio tapped Mr. Garodnick and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer to oversee a lengthy community review process before the mayor unveils a plan for the 70-block rezoning.

City Planning to get budget boost

From the Epoch Times:

The budget for the Department of City Planning has been increased by 39 percent after seven consecutive years of decline to meet Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious affordable housing goal.

The department’s budget for the next fiscal year has been increased to $28 million, according to Carl Weisbrod, the agency’s director, who testified before the City Council Thursday.

De Blasio made a campaign promise to build and preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing in 10 years. The planning department plays a key role in this endeavor since the plan requires the construction of 80,000 new affordable housing units.

The department is also adding 31 staff positions to align with de Blasio’s priorities. That’s nearly half of the 68 staff positions it lost since 2008.

DCP expects to spend $879,000 on at least 10 borough planners, and $2 million on additional consultants, all directly related to the affordable housing plan.

Real estate lobbyist is new City Planning Commissioner

From Capital New York:

Bill de Blasio has named real estate lobbyist and long time man-about-government Carl Weisbrod chair of the City Planning Commission, where he will oversee all major land use decisions in New York City.

Weisbrod's most recent job was as a partner at HR&A Advisors, a firm that has lobbied on behalf of clients with business before that same Commission: Trinity Real Estate, which succesfully sought the rezoning of Hudson Square and tangled with Occupy Wall Street over Duarte Square; and the Howard Hughes Corporation, which wants to redevelop the South Street Seaport.

HR&A has also advised Major League Soccer in its failed effort to build a soccer arena in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Before working at HR&A, he worked in-house running Trinity's real estate division.

Weisbrod, who co-chaired de Blasio's mayoral transition, has deep experience in planning and real estate issues.

Under Ed Koch, he headed up 42nd Street Development Project.

"Lo and behold, go to 42nd Street today and see what Carl Weisbrod's vision led to," said de Blasio today, during a press conference at City Hall.

He went on to take on the top staff job at the Koch's City Planning Commission, and then he became founding president of the Economic Development Corporation under Mayor David Dinkins.

Amanda Burden doesn't seem all that bad now, does she?