Zoning plan sees change of skyline citywide

One of six proposed amendments to the city’s zoning text, put forth by the American Institute of Architects, seeks to allow for a 25 percent increase in the maximum base height of buildings in R6 to R10 zones to match with adjacent buildings. The image at left shows the existing maximum base height, with a setback included, while the image at right reflects the requested revision sought by the amendment.

By Patrick Hedlund

A proposed revision to the zoning law that could have an everlasting impact on citywide design has met with both furor and favor from neighborhoods across the New York. Chelsea/Clinton’s Community Board 4, however, has fallen somewhere in between in its assessment, offering both stiff criticisms and innovative suggestions to a proposal that if passed, could redefine the city’s skyline.

The board recently responded to the six-point zoning proposal, which was submitted by the American Institute of Architects in late 2007, in a letter to the Department of City Planning last month. Many community boards and neighborhood organizations across the city have spoken out against the plan, including at a recent town hall meeting in midtown moderated by the Historic Districts Council seeking to beat the proposal back.

The board met eye to eye with the HDC in rejecting at least one of the six amendments seeking to increase certain buildings’ base heights, but favored another decried by meeting attendees that looks to maximize development of unfilled space. The board provided some forward-thinking insight on the proposed amendment to enlarge rooftop bulkheads, offering recommendations that could benefit sustainable-energy operations. The board also added choice language on an amendment aimed at increasing residential density in “sliver buildings,” lending conditional consent if the proposal includes specific height limitations.

The AIA’s initial application received the approval from City Planning, but its full passage could “open the floodgates” to out-of-character development across the city, charged the 80-strong group of concerned residents and public officials attending the Jan. 23 meeting. They said the “stealth application” had been submitted surreptitiously during holiday downtime to avoid the criticism of a more thorough public review.

Led by the HDC, the overwhelmingly oppositional crowd—many from Queens and Brooklyn—urged a wholesale rejection of the proposal. Members of Board 4, however, saw both positives and negatives as it pertained to their West Side neighborhoods.

The leadership at CB 4, who commented after viewing an earlier but similar iteration of the amendments, showed outright or conditional support for three of the proposals, while only opposing one. (Community Board 5’s Land Use and Zoning Committee heard a presentation from the AIA regarding the proposal just this week, and will likely make its recommendations in the near future.)

“A lot of it does not apply in Manhattan; even less in Chelsea/Clinton,” acknowledged Lee Compton, Board 4’s co-chair of the Chelsea Preservation and Planning Committee, to Chelsea Now. In Compton’s and his colleagues’ Jan 4. letter to City Planning regarding the proposal, they noted, “we agree in principle with the stated goals of removing or updating old and outmoded provisions and making the Zoning Resolution work better for a largely built-up, mature city…”

The one provision that both the HDC and Board 2 roundly panned seeks to allow for a 25 percent taller maximum base height on buildings in R6 to R10 zones to match with adjacent buildings. This could lead to the elimination of building setbacks in certain neighborhoods by allowing the base to rise higher, creating a more uniform, “canyon” streetscape. According to the AIA, the amendment “allows more flexibility in building design” and “allows new buildings to be more contextual in relation to adjacent buildings.”

Board 4, in opposing the amendment, cited its study of street wall continuity in work on the Hudson Yards and West Chelsea rezonings. “In general, although we welcome creativity and variety, we favor contextual building, of which one part is the street wall,” the board stated. “We are concerned, however, that the proposed amendment could compound previous errors by permitting inappropriately high base height, to spread to adjacent buildings. We believe that some variation in base heights is preferable to the risk of creating uniformity at an inappropriate height…”

HDC President Paul Graziano, accompanied by executive director Simeon Bankoff, called this proposal “absurd” and said that contextual districts were created to protect against exactly this type of design.

Another amendment the HDC opposed, again in R6 to R10 zones, seeks for the number of dwelling units in lots less than 18 feet wide or smaller than 1,700 square feet to be determined by density regulations—rather than the current text, which limits these lots to just one or two dwelling units.

This proposal pertains to “sliver buildings,” which many times sit in lots abutted by much wider buildings. “The benefit to the community is what?” asked Graziano. “It seems to be something, again, that’s going to benefit the builder.” A Queens community board, in its evaluation of the amendment, said it would “likely result in subdivision of existing lots to increase existing residential density.”

Board 4 stated the amendment “would allow for multi-family buildings on undersized lots, but structures with three or more dwelling units would be restricted to the building envelope of an R8B district (60-foot maximum base height, 75-foot maximum building height.)”

The board expressed concern over the possible “profusion of tall, thin buildings being constructed on infill lots” referred to in the amendment. However, in its letter to City Planning, the board offered conditional support for its potential to create additional housing units. “We support the amendment with the additional condition that the maximum height is limited to 60 feet or the height of the taller of the adjacent buildings, but not to exceed 75 feet.”

The board also gave conditional support to an amendment that seeks to roughly double the size of specific buildings’ rooftop bulkheads to “accommodate modern building infrastructure,” according to the AIA. While the meeting’s organizers and attendants had jeered the entire six-point plan, Graziano acknowledged this particular proposal presented a “less onerous” threat than most of the others.

Board 4 took the opportunity to respond to the amendment’s possible effects on sustainable, or green, technology with a “mixed” reaction: “We are sensitive to anything that increases the bulk of buildings beyond what is permitted, especially on low buildings, but we are enthusiastic supporters of sustainable technology that has a significant impact on a building’s energy or water use or on its environmental emissions,” the letter said. It went on to state: “We need to understand what is truly needed or desirable for the community with current and projected conditions as opposed to what simply is desirable on the part of the building owner or developer.”

The board provided a detailed list of suggested modifications to this amendment, which ranged from consolidating energy-efficient equipment into bulkheads, making sure that rooftop expansions serve the building rather the owner’s financial interests, and prohibiting self-/professional-certification on bulkhead installations.

The HDC’s overview of the six-point proposal, which it provided to the meeting crowd, quoted Board 4 in its review of this particular amendment, as well the one related to an increase in maximum base heights—giving a nod to the board for its study of the application, even though C.B. 4 supported pieces of it that HDC wants completely eliminated.

The one amendment the board fully supported proposes allowing 100 percent lot coverage on corner lots of 5,000 square feet or less in R6 to R10 zones. (In an R7 zone, for example, existing zoning dictates a maximum of 80 percent lot coverage, resulting in unfilled areas between adjacent buildings.)

“The proposed amendment would allow lower buildings (since allowable development could be distributed over more of the lot) and greater street wall continuity,” the board stated in support.

But it’s that lack of continuity, according to attendees at the meeting, that’s “part of the wonder of New York City,” said Graziano. He added that unfilled areas provide necessary light and air, and challenged the AIA’s contention that the amendment would act toward more efficient use of space.

“Efficient for who?” he asked. “Is it efficient to squeeze every last penny for a development?”

Queens Councilmember Tony Avella, a pro-preservation candidate for mayor who’s also chair of the Council’s zoning committee, showed up to help lead the charge against the AIA plan, calling the organization an “absolute disgrace” for not reaching out to him before submitting the proposal.

“If we let this go, if they are successful… it will open up the floodgates,” said Avella, citing people like Donald Trump as the type of developer who stands to capitalize most.

Avella and the other attendees agreed that the lack of a public process prior to the AIA’s application appeared to them unscrupulous, as it was submitted during the winter holidays when many community boards tend to incur a slowdown in activity.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation and a Board 4 public member, also believed the action has not undergone sufficient public vetting, which has “tended to make a lot of people view it in a suspicious light.”

“It is going to require an effort on the part of the public in order to change its course,” noting Board 4’s vested interest after working on its own contextual zoning. “It seems to be careening down the hill as we speak.”

Avella asked the crowd at the Jan. 23 meeting to start contacting their local councilmembers in anticipation of the application gaining approval from the Department of City Planning, who, as of the meeting, planned to hear the proposal later this month. If passed, the City Council will then make a final determination on whether the amendments become law.

“I want it dead,” Avella admitted. “This procedure is so, excuse my language, ass-backwards.”

According to Berman, the entire process—considering all that’s at stake—at least deserves more exhaustive public examination. “I think that most people would tend to err on the side of not seeing the changes made until or unless they’re fully fleshed out,” he said, adding the amendments “are not the ones that people want to see happen without a full, full airing.”