Building Power and a Livable New York
Compromise is Reached on Harlem Rezoning (NY Times)
City’s Coney Island Design Revised to Break Deadlock (NY Times)
Housing Policy: Politics as Usual (Columbia Spectator)
Harlem Fights for Victoria Theater (AM New York)
Answers About Brooklyn Architecture (City Room)
Introducting Planning for All New Yorkers: An Atlas of Community-Based Plans (Community Based Planning)
Willets Point Locals Sue City Over Neglect (Gothamist)
The Manhattanville Project (The Eye)
New Myrtle-Flatbush Tower to be Called “Toren” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
Gehry to Brooklyn Paper: Miss Brooklyn Ain’t Dead (Brooklyn Paper)
South Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance Ready to Go (Gowanus Lounge)
Despite Rezoning, a Net Loss of Office Space in Downtown Brooklyn (The Real Deal)
Manhattan’s Community Board 9 holds its general board meeting the third Thursday of each month. The next meeting will take place on April 17th at 6:30 p.m., at the Fortune Society (690 Riverside Drive @ W. 140th Street).
Harlem Councilwoman Opposes Rezoning Plan (NY Times)
Fighting a New 125th Street, Using a 110-Year-Old Law (NY Times)
Alumnus Governor May Impact the Fate of Manhattanville (Columbia Spectator)
Atlantic Yards May Prompt 9 to Revisit Eminent Domain (NY Sun)
Going Fourth: Brooklyn’s Boulevard Seems Ready for Retail (Brooklyn Paper)
An Atlas of Local Plans: Pointing the Way Forward? (City Limits)
As the Times reported last week, the Conflicts of Interest Board has cleared former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff to continue work on major development projects he oversaw while working as New York City’s development chief, even though he has gone on to work as president of Bloomberg L.P.
The 10-page waiver letter from the conflicts board grants Doctoroff extraordinarily wide privilege to continue working on his former projects. It permits him to continue serving on the boards of the Hudson River Park Trust and the Governor’s Island corporation, and to continue the work he began negotiating the creation of Moynihan Station. Doctoroff can work as an “unpaid consultant” on Queens West, the 5,000-unit housing development project for the East River waterfront.
Perhaps most stunningly, the former deputy mayor will “provide generalized policy advice and guidance on the implementation of PlaNYC,” the template for the future of New York City’s planning. That’s quite a job description, given that PlaNYC includes such sweeping recommendations as “Reclaim underutilized waterfronts” (”Today, New York City’s 578-mile waterfront offers one of the city’s greatest opportunities for residential development.”) Doctoroff will be involved in policy and land use decisions that open up billions of dollars of new development opportunities and shape the very fabric of the city.
More from VOTE People and this morning’s City Hall press conference on the 125th Street rezoning:
Chief Counsel Norman Siegel said that he has found no existing case law interpreting the section of the City Charter that the group seeks to use to block the City’s current 125th Street plans. However, according to General Counsel Erica Razook, the group has consulted several experts from past Charter Revision Commissions who have assured them that the clause — which hasn’t been invoked since the 1940’s — applies to this case.
VOTE People is contending that the City Council cannot vote before April 10, because doing so would encroach on the 30-day window the group has to collect signatures. If the City Council votes before then, Siegel says, his clients will sue.
VOTE People has two chief demands: first, that the city refrain from using eminent domain to conduct the rezoning; and secondly, that the city place a cap on commercial property rent increases, in order to protect “mom-and-pop stores.”
After Siegel finished outlined the legal logistics, a number of speakers came to the podium and fired up the small crowd of activists standing behind the reporters and photographers.
Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council said that the current action should inspire all New Yorkers: “The radical makeover of Harlem is just the beginning for working-class neighborhoods,” she said. “This lawsuit will set the tone for resistance to come. Harlem’s fight is your fight!”
Next up was Councilman Charles Barron. “Harlem is not for sale!” he boomed, prompting a rash of applause and cheering. “I am from the People’s Republic of Brooklyn, but Harlem is the Black Mecca…. The city is using development as a new form of Jim Crow-ism,” he said. “Race and class are always at the bottom of this kind of development.”
He then commended Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who is white, for his opposition to the 125th street rezoning plan: “I’ve decided to make Tony Avella an honorary black,” he joked.
Avella took the cue to come to the mic. “The people have lost power in New York City,” he said. “The only way to have recourse is to sue your own government. How sad is that?” He cited the example of the controversial Columbia decision, saying that the city has already “failed” the people of Harlem once. “I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen here. I gotta tell you, I’m not optimistic,” he said.
When I spoke to VOTE People executive director Craig Schley after the press conference, though, he emphasized that this legal action is only the beginning. He assured me, speaking of the rezoning plan: “This is not going to happen.”
VOTE People, a Harlem-based group that has been vocal in its opposition to the proposed 125th Street rezoning, is scheduled to hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall at 9 a.m. today. The organization will be announcing that it has filed a official protest — co-signed by Harlem business- and land-owners — against the proposal.Apparently those business and property owners have power to make more than a symbolic gesture. With the help of attorney Norman Siegel, VOTE People unearthed an obscure clause in the New York City Charter, which requires the Council to pass a rezoning by a three-fourths majority if a certain number of property-holders in an area to be zoned insists on it.
City Council will hold a public hearing on the 125th Street rezoning plan at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 1. The hearing will take place in the Council Chambers at City Hall.
Community Board 2 holds its general meetings the second Wednesday of each month.
The next meeting will take place April 9th at 6:00 p.m. in Room 122 of the Long Island University Library Learning Center (at Flatbush and DeKalb Avenue).
Call 718.596.5410 for more information.
A year has passed since PlaNYC was announced with great fanfare. What has happened to the plan since? The APA NY Metro Chapter in partnership with NYU Wagner and the Urban Planning Students Association will sponsor a panel discussion that will address implementation and impacts as well as offer evaluations.
Participants will include:
April 23, 2008 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
NYU Wagner - Puck Building, 295 Lafayette St. (at E. Houston St.), Manhattan
Event is sponsored by the NY Metro Chapter of the APA in partnership with NYU Wagner and the Urban Planning Students Association/NYU Wagner.
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