NEW YORK | Duarte Square | 429 FT | FLOORS

[NYguy]

http://www.thevillager.com/?p=3178

Hudson Sq. heights too high, residents say on zoning

March 29, 2012
BY ALBERT AMATEAU

Residents of Hudson Square’s low-rise blocks voiced their concerns on Tuesday on a proposed 20-block district that would encourage a mixed commercial/residential district active 24 hours, seven days a week. The proposed new development rules for the current Lower West Side manufacturing district between Canal and Houston Sts., would impose height limits where none now exist, impose rules for new and converted residential uses and allow a new high-rise residential building in Duarte Square at Canal St. at Sixth Ave. with a 420-seat public elementary school on its lower floors.

Although the rezoning, proposed last year by Trinity Real Estate — which owns 40 percent of the property in the district — would impose height limits, residents of Charlton and Vandam Sts. said at the Tues., March 27, forum that the limits were too high.

Height limits for new development would be 320 feet on the wide streets of Varick and Hudson Sts. and Sixth Ave.; 125 feet on Broome and Watts Sts.; and 185 feet on Dominick, Spring, Vandam, Charlton and King Sts. The proposed height limits are intended to achieve the goal of transforming the district, currently dominated by warehouses and commercial lofts, to 25 percent residential. But Sylvia Beam of the Vandam St. Block Association and Dick Blodgett of the Charlton St. Block Association, said the proposed 320-foot and 185-foot limits were not low enough to ensure the quality of life in the low-rise blocks.

Tobi Bergman, a Community Board 2 member who lives in the proposed Hudson Square zoning district, agreed. “So far, there has been no explanation for a 320-foot height limit,” Bergman said. “You don’t need 300-foot-tall buildings to achieve a 9 or 10 F.A.R. [Floor Area Ratio],” he added. F.A.R. refers to the ratio of allowable developable square feet in relation to the property’s footprint. The board will be focusing on the lack of open space as well as height limits. The Department of City Planning has yet to officially certify plans for the proposed district, starting the six-to-nine-month-long uniform land use review procedure (ULURP).

“I can’t imagine building a school at Duarte Square triangle with all that traffic,” said one resident. However, Carl Weisbrod, real estate consultant for Trinity, said the school entrance and exit would be on the Grand St. side of the triangle to separate it from the heavy traffic of Sixth Ave. Weisbrod said that Trinity would bear the cost of building out the shell and core of the school and turn it over to the School Construction Authority and the Department of Education to install classroom, program and office furnishings and run it as a public school.