NEW YORK | South Midtown Rezoning

[NYguy]

Manhattan CB4 review...


• Video Link

[NYguy]

https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/10/30/m...l-residential/

Bigger Apartment Buildings on Deck for Midtown South Under Adams-Council Proposal
Taking advantage of new flexibility granted by the state, city planners and local reps unveil zoning plans that will allow new housing construction and conversions at a scale that’s been prohibited for years.





BY GREG DAVID
OCT. 30, 2024

In a move poised to alter the Garment District along with parts of Flatiron and Chelsea, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is targeting Midtown South as the first area where it’s flexing the city’s new powers to permit larger residential buildings than previously allowed.

At a Zoom information session Wednesday night to review the city’s plan to rezone 42 blocks between 23rd and 41st streets, between Fifth and Eighth avenues, the Department of City Planning is expected to announce that it is modifying its previously proposed plan for the area to take advantage of a new state law that allows the city to exceed a longstanding cap on the scale of new or renovated apartment buildings.

For decades, the so-called 12 floor-area-ratio, or FAR, cap has prohibited development any larger than 12 times the size of a building lot. The Department of City Planning will now propose that density in most of the area be increased to 18 FAR and the rest to 15 FAR.

This means buildings could be 25% or 50% larger than under the cap, enabling not only new construction but also reuse of longstanding industrial and office buildings — the kind of conversions that have transformed lower Manhattan into a mixed residential and office district.

Helping chances of passage through the City Council, the proposal already has the support of the local representatives, Erik Bottcher and Keith Powers.

If adopted, the change could produce as much as 9,700 new housing units, up from about 4,000 in the original proposal. Since the city’s mandatory inclusionary requirement will apply, the new housing could produce 2,800 apartments with permanently affordable below-market rents.

City of Yes seeks to spur more than 100,000 new housing units over 15 years by forcing every neighborhood to accept more housing. Crucial in reaching that goal — and encountering strong opposition — are provisions that would end requirements to create parking spaces and allow basement apartments and other so-called accessory dwelling units.

In choosing Midtown South, the administration has chosen an area represented by politicians identified with the YIMBY — yes in my backyard — pro-housing movement: Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Council members Powers and Bottcher.

[Busy Bee]

Now that so many sites have been squandered by hideous setback econohotels, they pitch this.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Now that so many sites have been squandered by hideous setback econohotels, they pitch this.

Don't worry. We could still get hideous setback apartment buildings.


Meanwhile, predictably, the same people who are largely responsible for the lack of affordable housing in the city are at it again...



https://commonedge.org/the-city-of-y...anhattan-mess/

The ‘City of Yes’ Will Make a Big Manhattan Mess


11.01.2024
By John Massengale

Yes to Bigger Profits for Big Real Estate

Two of the apartment towers on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row, 15 Central Park West and 220 Central Park South (both designed by my former boss, Robert A.M. Stern), are the most profitable buildings in the history of New York City. Not surprisingly, Big Real Estate wants to make it easier to build more super-profitable, supertall luxury towers.

Until 2024, New York had a 63-year-old statewide 12 FAR (floor area ratio, a measurement comparing the size of a building to the size of the land it’s built on) cap, and developers had to rely on a combination of commercial and residential zoning for the right to build supertalls, limiting the areas where they could build (thus the concentration around West 57th Street). Governor Kathy Hochul, however, eliminated the cap in the most recent state budget.

COYHO proposes two new residential zones, R11 and R12, which have FAR of 15 and 18. COYHO will also allow towers a thousand feet tall without using R11 or R12. New tools will make it easier to transfer air rights and therefore easier to build supertalls in more places.

If COYHO is approved as written, the planner George Janes thinks the next generation of supertalls will be in midtown and downtown, where air transfer rights are unlimited.

It remains to be seen what will happen on the Upper East and Upper West sides, which, like Billionaires’ Row, offer valuable views of Central Park, with the added advantage for developers of having popular, and expensive, historic districts.

The City Planning Commission would like us to believe that a little more affordable housing in every neighborhood is the primary reason Mayor Adams and Big Real Estate want zoning reform. R11 and R12 come with mandatory inclusive housing requirements. But in Manhattan, where land prices, apartment prices, and luxury tower profits are all high, COYHO will mainly give us more apartments at the top of the market. Few luxury housing developers will choose a permanent commitment to rent-stabilized tenants and regulations when they can make more money without those entanglements.

[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/new-york/202...town-rezoning/

City to supersize Midtown rezoning
Additional units require passage of City of Yes


Nov 1, 2024
By TRD Staff

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration set its sights on Midtown South as the first area to wield the city’s new powers to permit larger residential buildings.


The Department of City Planning announced modifications to its previously proposed plan for the area, taking advantage of a new state law allowing the city to exceed a longtime cap on the scale of new or renovated apartment buildings, according to a Zoom info session reported by The City.

The session was scheduled to review plans to rezone 42 blocks between 23rd and 41st streets, between Fifth and Eighth avenues.

For decades, a 12 floor-area-ratio (also known as FAR) cap has curtailed any development more than 12 times the size of a building lot.

The Department of City Planning has proposed to extend the density in most of the Midtown South area to 18 FAR, with the rest extended to 15 FAR. This would permit buildings to be up to 50 percent larger than under the cap, allowing for new construction and the reuse of industrial and office buildings.

The earliest the rezoning plan could be approved by the City Council would be mid-2025, but the plan’s chances for success in Midtown South are well assured, as local representatives like City Councilmembers Erik Bottcher and Keith Powers and Manhattan borough president Mark Levine are all aligned with pro-housing movement YIMBY and are supportive of the city’s proposal.

Any potential new units would require the passage of Adam’s administration’s City for Yes for Housing Opportunity, which creates the districts with higher FARs. The City of Yes proposal hopes to drive more than 100,000 new units over 15 years by forcing neighborhoods to accept more housing.

The expansion proposal represents a dramatic change for the neighborhood. Most of the Midtown South area was kept strictly for manufacturing during Mayor Ed Koch’s administration in the 1980s, in an effort to protect the jobs of 95,000 garment factory workers. Today, only 6,600 New Yorkers hold those jobs, according to New York State’s labor department.

Under Mayor Bill De Blasio, the Garment District was rezoned to allow for increased commercial usage, but residential buildings remained prohibited.