At January 9 swearing-in ceremony for City Council member Margaret Chin, Borough President Gale Brewer pointedly predicted that, “when a real estate developer says that he wants something, and Margaret and I say he can’t have it, that developer is screwed, because we are not going to change our positions.”
On Thursday, Ms. Brewer and Ms. Chin moved to put action behind those words by filing with the Department of City Planning an application to amend the zoning regulations that govern the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan (located on the East River waterfront, roughly between the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges) to slow — or perhaps halt entirely — the development of four proposed luxury apartment towers that critics says were made possible by a zoning loophole.
This technicality is contained within the Two Bridges Large Scale Residential Permit, a guideline issued in 1972 that covers a multi-block zone within the former Two Bridges Urban Renewal Area. As a result of this codicil, Carl Weisbrod, the de Blasio administration’s then-City Planning chief ruled in 2016 that under existing zoning laws, the four proposed “super-tall” apartment towers each qualified as “minor modifications” to existing structures, because they would be erected within parking lots that surround the older buildings. This interpretation, if upheld, would allow all four buildings to skip the City’s rigorous “uniform land-use review procedure” (ULURP) and comply only with the far-less exacting requirements of an “enhanced environmental impact statement.” Unlike ULURP, the environmental impact statement process does not provide for any City veto power over a proposed development.
The four towers currently being proposed range between 700 and 1,000 feet in height, and will bring many thousands of new apartments to a community with few schools or parks, and not a single subway station. On a more encouraging note, each of these builders plans to set aside approximately 25 percent of the apartments they will construct with some kind of affordability protection.
City Council member Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer at the Department of City Planning on Thursday, where they filed an application to modify development rules governing the Two Bridges neighborhood, so that the community could have a voice in plans for a quartet of four new residential towers currently in the planning phase.
If Ms. Chin’s and Ms. Brewers stratagem is successful, it could enable the community and its representatives to negotiate (either with developers, or with the City, or both) for amenities and infrastructure (such as a community center, or additional affordable housing or park space) needed to support a rapidly expanding residential population. Such negotiations might also result in scaled-back plans, and smaller buildings.
“This is the real estate business in New York,” said Ms. Brewer. “There’s intense pressure to find and exploit loopholes to build huge, ultra-luxury buildings. That’s what’s happening in Two Bridges, where huge out-of-scale towers could move forward because of a staff-level determination that they are only a ‘minor modification’ to the neighborhood’s plan. Sometimes you need to clarify rules to make sure they’re enforced, and that’s what we’re doing here.”
“We are renewing our demand that the City provide the Two Bridges community a real opportunity to shape the future of their neighborhood,” said Ms. Chin. “In order to turn the tide against out-of-control overdevelopment across our City, we need to act decisively and close loopholes that would allow for the construction of out-of-scale luxury towers without a robust and transparent public review. This text amendment marks the latest chapter in our fight to strengthen the community’s voice in the land use process, and preserve the legacy of affordable housing that Two Bridges residents are fighting to protect.”
The draft zoning text amendment submitted by Brewer and Chin would require a new special permit for certain developments in the Two Bridges Large Scale Residential Area, mandating full public review under the the ULURP process.