Posted Oct 18, 2011, 10:52 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/ny...er=rss&emc=rss
Washington Heights Balks at Buildings That Raise Altitude
Pedestrians walk by the Quadriad Realty Partners' proposed site for an apartment complex in Washington Heights.
Quadriad Realty Partners' chief executive, Henry Wollman, says taller towers would yield more lower-cost apartments.
By JOSEPH BERGER
October 18, 2011
Quote:
Local residents call the neighborhood The Heights because of its steep terrain and riverside bluffs, not because it has vertigo-inducing buildings. So a developer’s plan to build four apartment towers ranging from 23 to 39 stories tall has set off alarms in Washington Heights, where buildings typically run 6 to 10 stories. “It looks like a Stalinist-era project — gigantic towers sitting atop a fairly sedate neighborhood,” said one opponent, Vadim Moldovan, an associate professor of social work at York College who has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years. “It would dwarf the landscape and blot out the sun.”
Last month, the local community board unanimously rejected a proposal for the four towers, which would have required a zoning change by the city, and it urged the developer, Quadriad Realty Partners, to return with a scaled-down blueprint for shorter buildings at the site, at Broadway and 190th Street.
Quadriad officials say that installing a greater proportion of so-called affordable apartments would make no economic sense. Without the revenue produced by taller buildings, virtually all of the apartments would have to be rented at market rate — over $2,900 for two-bedroom homes. Despite the community board’s opposition, the developer said it planned to apply to the city’s Planning Commission for a zoning modification in the next few weeks. But if the change is not granted the firm says it will then build two stouter, market-rate buildings — 28 and 24 stories tall, which it has the legal right to do under existing zoning.
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