Posted Jun 11, 2014, 5:14 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,919
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/op...east-side.html
Smart Growth on the East Side
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
JUNE 10, 2014
Quote:
With the sun setting on his final term, Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried last fall to push through a grand rezoning plan for East Midtown that would have brought many more office towers and a flood of workers to a 73-block area around Grand Central Terminal. He said it met an urgent need to keep the city competitive, with up-to-date buildings and improved transportation above and below ground. The plan died in the City Council, under criticism from community members and elected officials who said it was too drastic and too complicated to wave through.
They were right. But Mayor Bill de Blasio is also right to have revived the plan, putting part of it on a fast track and the rest on a proper trajectory, with a thorough, “ground-up” review that recognizes the need to polish that gem of a business district, but to do it wisely.
The larger rezoning is expected to take several years, as it should. The trick will be to balance ambitious growth with sensible preservation and to make sure an aging, strained transportation grid is strengthened for an influx of workers, especially when the Long Island Rail Road comes to Grand Central.
A new task force, led by the Manhattan borough president, Gale Brewer, and City Councilman Daniel Garodnick, a thoughtful critic of the Bloomberg plan, should be well poised to think this through.
Meanwhile, the developer SL Green Realty, with the administration’s support, is moving ahead with plans to build a 1,200-foot tower on Vanderbilt Avenue, next to Grand Central. The administration says the project, which will be taller than the Chrysler Building, will include more than $200 million in transit improvements, like wider subway platforms and new underground connections, paid for by the developer and overseen by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
It is only fair for the city to insist on needed public amenities in return for the right to build so big and high, and to place those costs on the developer, not the taxpayer.
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NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
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I'm just concerned about how easy it seems to simply pass the cost of transit improvements to the developer.
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