[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...oreUserAgent=1

City bends to rezoning pressure

By DANIEL GEIGER
Jul 18, 2013

The city's planning department released an amended version of its sweeping midtown east rezoning plan on Thursday in an effort to address some of the concerns of a growing number of critics.

Prominent among the changes, is a proposal to allow residential units to take up to 20% of the space in the new generation of state-of-the-art office skyscrapers that the rezoning plan is designed to entice developers to erect. Developers could add even more residential units to a project, up to 40% of the new space that is built on a site, if they receive a special permit. The opportunity to build housing units will likely be an alluring option for developers of a new wave of major mixed-use towers on what have been predominantly commercial avenues.

That amendment would allow developers to put those apartments atop their new buildings along the area's major arteries including Park and Madison avenues. Given the current robust strength of the city's housing market, the existence of a residential option will likely add considerable fuel to developers' willingness to build new towers. City Planning officials said the new residential allowance would come with its own class of air rights whose price will be set in the coming months.

The inclusion of reidential space could net more money for the city, which plans to sell the development rights that would allow developers to build bigger in order to pay for infrastructure and transit improvements in and around Grand Central Terminal. The city announced in the spring that it will aim to charge $250 per square foot for commercial development rights it sells. But residential space is far more valuable currently, and City Planning staff said those development rights would be priced at a higher number in the coming months.