Monday, January 22, 2018

REBNY wants to eliminate building height limits

From Crains:

This year the Real Estate Board of New York plans on pushing Albany to lift a cap that has long limited the size of new apartment buildings in New York City, the trade group’s president said Thursday.

Current state rules restrict the square footage of a residential building to 12 times its lot size. While this has resulted in plenty of tall Manhattan apartment towers, developers have the capability to go much higher. Commercial office buildings are routinely built to twice this density, and some of them have later been converted to apartments.

Unlocking greater density in transit-rich areas could help chip away at the city’s housing crunch and provide affordable housing, said REBNY President John Banks, who represents many of the landlords and developers who would construct the buildings.

Banks envisions allowing buildings to exceed the cap if they are rezoned, which would require going through the public-review process and including affordable housing. It is a concept that both REBNY and others have embraced in the past. Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested nixing the density cap in his 2014 housing plan. And the Regional Plan Association included the idea in its Fourth Regional Plan. In the coming months, RPA is separately planning to release a study and start a push of its own to get rid of the limit.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes go ahead keep building while our infrastructures crumble and the buses and trains dont run well. Keep going mayor dumbdumb. You are just digging us into an even bigger hole. Nine million people live here (I don't believe its only 8.4 million) but just imagine 10 million people living here? It would be a NIGHTMARE!

(sarc) said...

This is obvious!

With a friendly lame duck sitting in the mansion, it would be foolish not to strike ar this time...

Anonymous said...

We should be working on eliminating new building in the city. Our infrastructure can't handle any more people.

Anonymous said...

You already cannot literally walk down the sidewalks of Manhattan without bumping into people. There is not room on the sidewalks for unimpeded walking. The subways and buses are standing room only. Driving around the city has become a nightmare of bumper to bumper congestion and dealing with the horrifically undermaintenanced pothole ridden streets, burnt out street lights, roads with worn-away lane markings. Why does the city need to house MORE people? It needs to shed people---illegal trash invaders (they are NOT immigrants). We are being forced to live like rats in a warren, pushing the infrastructure far beyond what it was designed to serve. But the mayor, incompetent and corrupt as he is, will bow to any REBNY demand because they own him. They are his bosses, certainly not the people of NYC.

TommyR said...

Sacrifice Manhattan at the altar of crowding and density first, and let it be hit the worst. I really don't care how tall City buildings get; it'll just serve as a test-bed warning for all other outer-borough denizens to dig in that much harder to resist this crap.

People naturally appreciate amorphous concepts like "quality of life" and "livable space" not by simple explanation but by relative comparison best; and nothing makes a fellow appreciate his little lot so much as seeing a forest of glass beanstalks blot out the sun and sky across the river, and dwarf everything around them.

Anonymous said...

Get this through your thick skulls...REBNY runs NYC. They elect the mayors and all city council members. Oh....you thought you did? BS!
Who do you think supports all of our crooked pols in their election and re-election campaigns?
That's right...REBNY $$$$$$$$$$$$!!!'
Do go and pick your nose and pretend you voters have power.

Anonymous said...

Why is this a state regulation? This should be a City decision, for or against.

John said...


NYC's population growth, by a far margin, is births exceeding deaths. This leaves a surplus of 400,000 new residents in the six years from 2010-2016. That number, is far higher than all other population increase.

If this trend continues (and increases exponentially as births do), you could have 1 million more people per decade in births alone.

In 1400 there were only 350 million people on the entire planet. Today there are over 7.6 billion people. Populations grow exponentially, especially now that people don't die young as often.

There is no sign that births are going ever slow down and they are the biggest factor in population growth. We need housing and an infrastructure plan.


https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/nyc-population/current-future-populations.page

Anonymous said...

There are 10 million people here and 3 million more commute in every day!! And they still don’t fix the subways!!

Anonymous said...

1. Ask for insane zoning regulation to be passed.
2. Add a small percentage for "affordable housing"
3. Squash opposition by calling them racist.
4. Repeat.

Anonymous said...

Get this through your thick skulls...REBNY runs NYC.

Absolutely.
All politicians are their slaves.

Anonymous said...

The main reason traffic and mass transit is a mess. Trying to put 5 quarts in a gallon container.

JQ LLC said...

What REBNY wants, and as everyone cognizant of the willful subservience of the betraying electeds, the tower pestilence landscape by the rivers and transit hubs, and the incessant overpopulation of the last 5 years...

REBNY will always get.

(sarc) said...

When you have vermin, the first step to eliminate them is to cut off the food supply.

We are offering free government food and housing to all the vermin coming her and of course "sanctuary"!

Remember that New York State is loosing the tax paying citizens more than most other states.

Two congressional seats were lost in the last census.

The elimination of the "SALT" deduction will help to accelerate the exodus.

The once great Empire State will continue to lose political power in Washington DC.

"Escape from New York"...

Ned said...

NYC's population growth is NOT because births are exceeding a death, that’s 100% bullshit.
It’s because these new immigrants and illegal’s keep having kids till their wombs fall out or they get menopause.
When I lived Springfield blvd I knew 30-34 year old woman from Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala (Craigslist working girls who lived in the building) all had not One but SEVERAL teenage kids. It seems that way with all of them.
I never used their services but they all seemed to like me for some reason.
One even told me (more like tried to work me) "America is a great country" she needed another kid because they were going to trim down her "benefits" and had to go to work.
Their families were so huge with kids on certain holiday’s guests and kids would spill out into the hall and have to use the lobby and staircases.

These Locust people breed and consume like locusts! Its no wonder anyplace they land becomes crime ridden, depleted shithole in 5-15 years.
This is FACT, not racism!!
Trump needs to get that wall up, lock the gates and enforce laws or America will soon no longer be a country. The NYC mayor belongs in jail or a mental institution for this sanctuary nonsense that is destroying virtually every school, road & neighborhood in New York City.

Ned
www.nra.org

Anonymous said...

Agenda 21 will force people into mega cities and not allow rural living.
This fits the plan.

Anonymous said...

>Agenda 21 will force people into mega cities and not allow rural living.

Why do they need a secret agenda to force people to do this, when it's what most people voluntarily want to do already?

TommyR said...

not a secret agenda. UN goal since early 90s, massively around efficiency of resource distribution - water, fuel, food, etc.

people, fucking read. Cities have been around for millennia. the real question: what should their average upper population boundary be?

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous said...
"Why do they need a secret agenda to force people to do this, when it's what most people voluntarily want to do already?"

Read Agenda 21 and you will learn why !

Anonymous said...

>Read Agenda 21 and you will learn why !

Disappointing non-answer.