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Old Posted Nov 5, 2007, 12:30 PM
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007...over_re-3.html

West Side residents vs. Bloomberg over rezoning plan

BY ADAM LISBERG
November 5th 2007

Bloomberg has called the West Side "the next Gold Coast" - but critics wonder why the anti-congestion mayor wants to pack it with as many as 20,000 more parking spaces.

Local residents are suing to block Bloomberg's rezoning plan for the area because of the extra parking, and environmental and transportation groups also call it bad policy.

"It sounds to me like the development people are not talking to the environmental people at City Hall," said Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan), who represents the area. "It would encourage more people to drive cars into the central business district. If you build off-street parking, they will come."

Bloomberg this spring unveiled a long-term strategy to keep New York from choking on traffic by charging cars $8 to enter Manhattan below 86th St. But he has also pushed an effort to rezone the far West Side region known as Hudson Yards for new high-rises - and garages.

Most of Manhattan is covered by tight parking restrictions to discourage cars and reduce air pollution, but the Hudson Yards rezoning sought to lift those limits to allow an extra 20,000 parking spaces, said Kyle Wiswall, general counsel for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

"It seems kind of quizzical why they're still pursuing more parking there," Wiswall told the Daily News. "The last thing it needs is more traffic."

The Bloomberg administration says it hopes most workers and residents will rely on mass transit to get there.

"The recent rezoning of Hudson Yards, which was done concurrently with the approval of the expansion of the No. 7 subway, will promote the emergence of a new public-transportation-oriented residential and commercial community with considerable affordable housing and public green space," said mayoral spokesman John Gallagher.

In a speech to the Manhattan Institute last week, Bloomberg said extending the 7 train to Hudson yards will make it "the next Gold Coast of this city."

Gottfried, though, said more parking will create more congestion. "If increased development is going to be accompanied by increased automobile traffic, it will strangle itself," he said.

State environmental regulators had not objected to the rezoning until critics complained in August. Now state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis has ordered the city to study how parking limits affect air pollution.

"We've been at hearing after hearing," said Christine Berthet of the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association, which has sued to block the rezoning. "Why is the plan still there?"
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