Posted Feb 8, 2022, 3:24 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 57,182
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^ More from that
https://therealdeal.com/2022/02/08/don-p...housing-absurd-for-11th-avenue-site/amp/
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To developer Don Peebles, the state’s decision to halt plans for a West Side development felt like canceling the Super Bowl with his team leading at halftime.
The state has not specified how it will change the RFP, but community members have called for more affordable housing and Hochul recently added more residential space to a state plan for 10 towers around Penn Station. With so few state-owned development sites available in Manhattan, the governor, who is up for election this year, is facing pressure to include affordable housing at 418 11th Avenue.
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The RFP issued by the Cuomo administration allowed for commercial or mixed-use development. Proposals with apartments would need to make 30 percent of them affordable for individuals making an average of 80 percent of the area median income. But that was not the only factor deterring developers from including residential space.
Another was that property tax break 421a expires in June and political consensus on a replacement could be elusive. The last time it lapsed, developers largely stopped proposing new apartment buildings.
Moreover, a commercial building could be larger. A residential project would be limited to a floor area ratio of 12, although the site permits an overall FAR of 24. Hochul has proposed lifting the residential cap in the city, but previous attempts to do so have failed.
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The canceled RFP encouraged “hotel uses that are complementary” to the nearby Javits Convention Center, a sentiment that Peebles supports.
“Affordable housing is not the best use for that site — across the street from the Javits Center is absurd,” he said. “It would be squandering an opportunity to help Javits become more competitive.”
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Community Board 4, an advisory body of local volunteers, has made clear that it prefers residential construction on the site, which is between West 35th and West 36th streets.
“We were very pleased that this RFP was pulled back for reconsideration,” said its chairman, Jeffrey LeFrancois. “This site could be a huge boon for housing development that includes a wide band of income spectrum.”
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Brookfield, Related Companies, Rockrose Development Corp. and Tishman Speyer also reportedly toured the site, though it is not clear if they planned to submit proposals to the original RFP.
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Everything I’ve been saying. What the author doesn’t realize though is that you can still build a tower of the same size with residential space, it would have to be mixed-use with no more than half residential, and 30% of the residential as affordable housing. Also, Hochul doesn’t have to try to shoehorn it onto this site when there is a much larger, less complicated site nearby, where she could probably get in at least one fully “affordable” tower.
The governor canceled the RFP because there was no affordable housing. It’s not likely she will issue a new one that doesn’t require it.
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