Results tagged “landuse”

Hiram Monserrate, the City Councilman who had been one of the leading voices of opposition foiling Mayor Bloomberg’s redevelopment plans in Willets Point, announced yesterday that he has struck a deal with the mayor and thrown his support behind the proposal which is expected to be voted on (and will now likely pass) today. The new deal includes guarantee that one-third of the housing built to be marked "permanently affordable” for low-income families, an 850-seat school and a convention center to be built in the area, a $3 million tenant relocation fund available for area businesses and job training and placement for the 1,300 affected workers.The plan still doesn’t rule out the possibility that the city will have to invoke eminent domain. Not all of Monserrate’s constituents were happy with his announcement—some local business owners painted over his name on his campaign bus.

If you watch just one Community Board Meeting video this summer, make it this one. Willets Point property owners who've been passionately protesting Mayor Bloomberg's controversial $3 billion plan to rezone the area (to make way for a hotel, convention center, offices and retail stores) have put together this video showing how the sausage gets made over at Community Board 7. Their gripping featurette focuses in on a contentious committee meeting that yielded a yes vote for the city's proposal, despite serious reservations voiced by board members.

Angry opponents to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to develop 62 acres of poorly-maintained land in Willets Point, Queens disrupted a press conference yesterday held by city officials in Washington Square Park to tout the proposal. Councilman Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes Willets Point, led over two dozen protesters to the press conference, where they drowned out advocates for the plan, chanting “Justice for Willets Point!” According to the Times, the police refused to remove the protesters, telling officials they had a right to be there, even if they were being disruptive.

     

Last year Mayor Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan to seize 61 acres of the Willets Point district next to the forthcoming Citi Field in Queens through eminent domain, raze it, and construct 5,500 units of housing, a hotel, convention center and over 2 million square feet of office space, restaurants and retail shops. But business owners in the target zone have been fighting it, saying their ‘hood, dubbed the Iron Triangle for its chop shops and scrap yards, just needs repair, not total eradication. Sound familiar?

Photo: Food of the Future

A state judge has shot down Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to rent sports fields on Randalls Island to private schools because the administration failed to follow the legally required land-use review process when it made the deal. The plan was for private schools to pay $2.6 million a year for the next two decades in exchange for use of the renovated fields during peak hours from 3pm to 6pm. The Parks Department had agreed to contribute $65 million to refurbishing 36 sports fields and building new fields on 12.5 acres of the island.

Earlier this year, Mayor Bloomberg announced a major plan to transform Willets Point, the area, also known as the Iron Triangle, across from Shea Stadium, into a thriving area of new housing, business and hotels. However, some are pretty unhappy with the plans, which include replacing 250 businesses, and they've channeled their hopes - and a fair amount of money - to City Council member Melinda Katz. The Post reports Katz received $29,500 from "people...

On the heels of its land use committee's vote last week, Community Board 9, which represents West Harlem, voted to oppose Columbia's ambitious plans to develop a 17-acre area in West Harlem. However, as the Columbia Daily Spectator explains, CB9 did offer "ten specific conditions" that Columbia must agree to before the community board will give their approval.

It's a mixed bag for Columbia today. The school was probably happy to find out that it ranked 9th in U.S News & World Report's latest top college ranking issues, but it's no fun to learn that its billion-dollar Manhattanville project was rejected by a community board committee.

A no parking sign? A fire hydrant? Mere street dressing when it comes to drivers with a DOT-issued Department of City Planning placard. Streetsblog observes that a yellow Porsche convertible parked on Seventh Avenue belongs to City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams. Hello, Dolly indeed.

As we mentioned, City Councilman Charles Barron held his press conference yesterday to announce his candidacy for the 2009 Brooklyn Borough Presidency. He told the crowds that his platform included affordable housing, health care accessibility, more jobs, standing up to developers who use eminent domain, ending mayor control of schools and more would help everyone. "Am I going to be a borough president for all the people? Absolutely. But I'm letting y'all know now, I'm taking care of black folk. Unapologetically."

Bruce Ratner’s mega-project isn’t only a catalyst for lawsuits. It’s also behind a push to create a historic district in Prospect Heights. “I think with the Atlantic Yards happening, there’s a real urgency to get it designated,” Municipal Art Society fellow Lisa Kersavage told Gothamist. “The development pressures are increasing dramatically.”

The NY Times has a nice profile of Amanda Burden, the influential Department of City Planning commissioner whose policies will shape the city for years to come.

Public hearings tend to be impassioned and last night's Atlantic Yards gathering was no exception. With three community board hearings held simultaneously in different locales, we opted, sans body armor, for the homey confines of Community Board 6 (where we happen to live). And yet, sitting among a crowd of just 60 in the sterile Long Island College Hospital conference room with pale pink walls, a blank blackboard and a television with AV-style accouterments perched in the corner, we sensed an eerie quiet.

We were intrigued by the deconstruction of the word "blight" in today's New York Times. You've heard the story already, no doubt: Last week, a state environmental impact statement called the area proposed for the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project blighted.

Monitoring the city's job postings can pay off! Luckily, Streetsblog has been doing just that and pieces together how the city is serious about developing "comprehensive transportation and land use strategy for New York City."

The first signal came at the beginning of Mayor Bloomberg's second term when DOT Commissioner Iris Weinhall was knocked one rung down the Administration's org chart. She is now reporting directly to Doctoroff.

Continue reading "Planning Has to Start Somewhere"

Check it out! The Mayor Bloomberg, hoping to make Hudson Yards lemonade out of failed Jets Stadium lemons, along with West Side Stadium opponent City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have offered the MTA $500 million for the West Side Railyards. The two officials sent the MTA an "unexpected" offer letter, which has the city paying $300 million for the "Western Rail Yard" (where the Jets Stadium would have been) and $200 million for the Eastern Rail Yard. The $300 million is already $50 million more than the Jets offered for that parcel and is in line with what the MTA wanted last year, but the MTA appraised it at $923 million. Speaker Quinn said, "Together the city must work to create a mixed-use commercial and residential district, one that protects existing residents, businesses and manufacturers while also creating new employment opportunities, affordable housing, and parks." In other words, let's jampack Manhattan with everything while the iron is hot.

"New York might need an extra million or so slices of cake for its 400th birthday party in 2025."

Editor's note: This is the first entry from Calvin Wong, an aspiring land use attorney, New York native, and Scrabble junkie.

Brooklyn community groups descended on City Hall yesterday, to protest the rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and it seems that the City Council is on board, as it "threatened...to scuttle" the Bloomberg plan. The sticking points are that the Bloomberg plan includes a lot of development with a lot of tall buildings, and possibly not enough park space or low income housing. The Bloomberg administration counters that the plan has to be attractive enough for developers to want to develop the "polluted, underused" space.

Officials from the city and the from Jets, however, maintain that the stadium will help develop the West Side. Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff called the RPA plan "flawed" and "a halfhearted recipe that will not produce significant change on the West Side." There's nothing quite like a debate over land use.

The Domino Sugar Plant in Williamsburg has been bought. The NY Times reports that developers have not disclosed what the plant will be, but notes that one of the partners, Isaac Katan, is a "Brooklyn developer who has helped gentrify Fourth Avenue in Park Slope", while the other partner, C.P.C. Resources, has experience in rehabilitation of older apartments. The article also notes that when the plant stopped sugar production (but remained open) last August, City Planning department had wanted to keep the plant for manufacturing, but things might have changed. Gothamist knows this much: The views from the plant would be really spectacular, whether residential or a commercial property...it would be cool to put a museum there, the way the Tate Modern, DIA Beacon and Mass MoCA are in old plants. But that doesn't do much to ensure blue collar jobs, so we'll be curious to see how planning officials and developers address the issue.