Public hearings on EV/LES rezoning

On Wednesday, August 13, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., at Tishman Auditorium of Vanderbilt Hall, New York University School of Law, 40 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012 in Manhattan. Public hearings will be held by the City Planning Commission on:

1. East Village/Lower East Side Rezoning - land use applications for a change to the zoning map (C 080397 ZMM, C 080397(A) ZMM) and zoning text amendment (N 080398 ZRM, N 080398(A)) and a related Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) (07DCP078M) submitted by the Department of City Planning.

2. Hunter's Point South – land use applications for a change to the City Map (C 080276 MMQ), a zoning map change (C 080362 ZMQ), a zoning text amendment (N 080363 ZRQ), acquisition of property (C 080364 PQQ), and UDAAP designation, plan and disposition (C 080365 HAQ) and a related DEIS (08DME006Q) submitted by the departments of Housing Preservation and Development and Parks and Recreation and the Economic Development Corporation.
THIS HEARING IS NOT LIKELY TO BEGIN BEFORE 11 AM.

3. Willets Point Development Plan – land use applications for a change to the City Map (C 080221 MMQ), a zoning map change (C 080381 ZMQ), a zoning text amendment (N 080382 ZRQ), urban renewal designation and plan (N 080383 HGQ, C 080384 HUQ) and disposition of city property (C 080385 HDQ) and a related DEIS (07DME014Q) submitted by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Economic Development Corporation.
THIS HEARING IS NOT LIKELY TO BEGIN BEFORE 12 NOON.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Registering to speak: Anyone wishing to speak on any of the items listed above is requested to fill out a speaker's slip supplied at the staff desk outside of Tishman Auditorium on August 13, 2008. Doors will open at 8:30 AM. Speakers on each item will be called in the order they are registered, with the exception that public officials will be allowed to speak first. If a large number of people wish to speak on a particular item, statements will be taken alternating every 30 minutes between those speaking in support of the proposal and those speaking in opposition.

Length of Testimony: In order to give others an opportunity to speak, all speakers shall limit their remarks to three minutes.

Interpretation of Speaker's Testimony: Interpreters in Chinese (Cantonese) and Spanish will be available for those speakers who cannot testify in English.

Written Material: If you intend to submit a written statement and/or other documents please submit 17 sets of each.

Vanderbilt Hall is located on the south side of Washington Square South (West 4th Street), just east of MacDougal Street.

Persons who cannot testify on August 13, 2008 may submit written testimony to:

City Planning Commission
Calendar Information Office
22 Reade Street – Room 2E
New York, New York 10007-1216

It is requested that such testimony be submitted by August 25, 2008.

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING ON THE DOB

ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIES
ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON CODES
ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON HOUSING
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

SUBJECT:	The Effectiveness of Regulation of Construction and Development in New York City and the Enforcement of the Building Code and the Zoning Resolution: A Second Hearing
PURPOSE:	To continue the exploration of the powers, duties, obligations and accountablitity of New York City's regulatory system for construction, development and zoning enforcement in light of the many recent tragic construction accidents involving death, injury and damage.

New York City Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:00 AM Assembly Hearing Room 250 Broadway Room 1923, 19th Floor

Devastating construction accidents are regularly occurring in New York City and underscore the immediate need for improved oversight of construction and building safety by the New York City Department of Buildings, the Environmental Control Board and other City agencies. Incidents this year involving death, injury, and/or property damage include: the March 15th crane collapse at 303 E. 51st Street in Manhattan involving seven deaths and a falsified DOB inspection report; the March 11th incident at 791 Glenmore Avenue, Brooklyn involving one death; the March 4th collapse at 102 E. 124th Street, Manhattan; and, the January 14th incident at 246 Spring Street in Manhattan involving one death. Several pieces of legislation whose purpose is to improve safety of construction and development in New York City have been introduced in the NYS Legislature. They include: A10188(Brennan) imposes a duty on the DOB to re-inspect and seek correction of all hazardous building violations. This bill was previously introduced as A7800 and vetoed by former Governor Spitzer at the request of the City of New York. A2886(Lentol)/S1329(Maltese) providing for additional review of building demolition applications. A7745a(Brennan)/S5422a(Padavan) known as the Department of Buildings Community Accountability Act, requiring monthly enforcement reporting to community boards. A7755(Hevesi)/S5407(Padavan) allows the City to convert into tax liens any unpaid, adjudicated fines levied for hazardous building violations. A2665(Lentol)/S1051(Padavan) requiring developers to create escrow accounts in relation to damage to adjoining property. A7744(Brennan)/S5410(Padavan) requiring City licensure of general contractors to prevent willful noncompliance with safety and other laws. The hearing will consider these and such other proposals as the public would care to put forward as the Assembly examines the DOB's current practices for dealing with complaints, permitting plans, permitting demolitions, initiating inspections, tracking violations, correcting hazardous conditions, ensuring proper construction practices, tracking repeat offenders, protecting the safety of workers and effectively overseeing the enforcement of the Building Code and Zoning Resolution. Please see the reverse side for a list of subjects to which witnesses may direct their testimony, and for a description of the bills which will be discussed at the hearing. Persons wishing to present pertinent testimony to the Committees at the above hearing should complete and return the enclosed reply form as soon as possible. It is important that the reply form be fully completed and returned so that persons may be notified in the event of emergency postponement or cancellation. Oral testimony will be limited to 10 minutes in duration. In preparing the order of witnesses, the Committees will attempt to accommodate individual requests to speak at particular times in view of special circumstances. These requests should be made on the attached reply form or communicated to Committee staff as early as possible. In the absence of a request, witnesses will be scheduled in the order in which reply forms are postmarked. Ten copies of any prepared testimony should be submitted at the hearing registration desk. The Committees would appreciate advance receipt of prepared statements. In order to further publicize these hearings, please inform interested parties and organizations of the Committees' interest in hearing testimony from all sources. In order to meet the needs of those who may have a disability, the Assembly, in accordance with its policy of non-discrimination on the basis of disability, as well as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has made its facilities and services available to all individuals with disabilities. For individuals with disabilities, accommodations will be provided, upon reasonable request, to afford such individuals access and admission to Assembly facilities and activities.

IF YOU PLAN ON TESTIFYING:

SELECTED ISSUES TO WHICH WITNESSES MAY DIRECT THEIR TESTIMONY:

1. Please describe the status of all building code enforcement activities at the four sites referred to in the notice, including permitting plans, complaints, inspections, violations, responses or non-responses by entities receiving violations to any hearings scheduled by the Environmental Control Board (ECB), and/or any actions taken by the ECB or any court actions taken by the Department of Buildings (DOB) in relation to DOB violations.
   
2. Please describe the ECB process and procedures, from issuance of violation through initial appearance to hearing outcome. What is the process regarding setting the hearing date; under what circumstances are hearings postponed; what are the consequences of default, failure to respond, and/or failure to correct; what steps does DOB take to ensure site safety during the adjudication process; and how do the DOB and the ECB interface to control conditions at building sites?
   
3. In certain circumstances, violations present imminent danger to the public and are treated as emergencies. Please describe how, by whom, and in what circumstances hazardous violations are brought to the attention of the commissioner, the New York City Fire Department, the Department of Investigations, the New York City Police Department, Department of Housing Preservation and Development or other agency responsible for investigation, correction, and/or emergency response. What are the established protocols for such actions, how are such actions recorded, and what records are maintained of the decision-making during the process?
   
4. In other circumstances, many hazardous violations are issued but the hazardous conditions at the work site are allowed to remain uncorrected. Please describe how the DOB tracks pending hazardous violations and ensures their correction. Who is responsible for re-inspection to verify correction? When does the DOB accept affidavits of correction and when does it require in-person inspection to verify correction of hazardous violations?
   
5. In regard to the prevention of accidents as well as effective enforcement, please describe how the DOB tracks and reports violations, accidents, defaults, outstanding fines and failed audits of professionally-certified plans by architects, engineers and contractors throughout its database and what measures are taken by the DOB as a result. What, if any, red flags trigger heightened scrutiny, closer inspection, and effective DOB investigation?
   
6. Again, in regard to the prevention of accidents as well as effective enforcement, please describe how the DOB tracks the safety performance of general contractors, as well as that of heavy equipment operators, crane operators, and concrete contractors, particularly in terms of hazardous violations, hearing defaults, accidents, and/or property damage.
   
7. *** Click here for printable form ***

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Serious concerns about the rezoning

Where should a concerned citizen go to comment on the rezoning?

The plan itself is in many ways the creation of Community Board 3's zoning Task Force (197 Task Force). They are proponents of the plan, so, while it would certainly be important to let them know how you feel, if you want to have an effect on the final outcome, it might be more effective to appeal to the more impartial full Community Board and to the Borough President, who also gets to review the proposal. The Community Board will be holding a public hearing on the rezoning as soon as DCP releases the Environmental Impact Statement, expected by or in April.

Concerned citizens are organizing around the rezoning too. E-mail me at
robcuny@gmail.com
for contacts and updates.

Meanwhile, I would like to draw your attention to three troubling features of DCP's Final Scope of Work:

1. The IZ affordable housing is not required on-site. Since renovation of existing affordable housing qualifies for the IZ bonus, off-site allowance means that, in effect, the R8B alternative for the avenues upzones them from current FAR 3.44 to FAR 4.6 without the promise of adding a single unit of affordable housing to our community.

This feature of DCP's Final Scope of Work is contrary to every principle and goal with which CB3 entered the rezoning project.

1st Avenue, for example, is lined with four and five story buildings dating from the Civil War and earlier. Very few structures there are taller than five stories. Under this alternative, the avenue will be vulnerable to as-of-right additions and redevelopment that will transform it beyond recognition. We will see primary and secondary displacement of both residents and businesses in addition to loss of light, context and history without benefit to the local community.

2. DCP proposes to include R8B zones in the commercial discontinuance exemption clause (article V, 52-61). Under this proposal, all commercial storefronts in R8B will remain available for commercial use regardless how long they fall out of such use. This will allow yet more nightlife establishments in oversaturated areas.

3. The C6-3A alternative (8.5 FAR, with off-site IZ renovations of existing units counting toward the bonus) upzones "the affected area" from current FAR 6 to FAR 8.5, once again without the promise of a single unit of new affordable housing. This again is contrary to the principles enunciated by CB3, dangerous to the Chinatown community and without redeeming value for either Chinatown or the LES.

Report on the Scoping Session

For those who missed the June 25 Scoping Meeting:
A couple of us presented the case for including the Bowery in the City's rezoning plan -- David Mulkins of 5th Street was particularly eloquent -- but most of the testimony in the evening session I attended was devoted to support for the Community Board's 11-point plan, the best features of which are unfortunately beyond the purview of zoning: the tenants' legal fund and the anti-harassment & anti-demolition measures to protect tenants.

Below is a generalized comparison of just the differences between 1) the City's proposal, 2) the CB's 11 points, 3) the LESRRD alternative, and 4) the current zoning. Instead of talking zoning jargon, I'm translating F.A.R. into stories of a typical tenement with a 70'X25' floor-space. The translation is not exact, but it's better than reading jargon:

DCP (the City's plan)
Most streets and avenues: construction no larger than 6 tenement-sized stories (4FAR)* height cap: 75-80'

Houston, Delancey, Chrystie, D: construction no larger than 8 tenement-sized stories (5.4FAR) , but 9 tenement-sized stories (7.2FAR) if 20% affordable housing is included height cap: 120'

The Bowery is left out of the plan


CB3
Avenues: construction no larger than 5 tenement-sized stories (3.45 FAR) or 7 tenement-sized stories (4.6FAR) if affordable housing is included
Most side streets: construction no larger than 4 tenement-sized stories (3FAR)

Houston, Delancey: 7 tenement-sized stories or 9 tenement-sized stories with affordable housing
Chrystie: 9 tenement-sized stories or 12 tenement-sized stories with affordable housing


LESRRD
All streets and avenues including the Bowery: construction no larger than 5 tenement-sized stories (3.44FAR), but 6 tenement-sized stories (4FAR) with affordable housing


CURRENT ZONING
All streets and avenues: no larger than 5 stories (3.44FAR ) but much, much more is allowed on large, combined lots if a community facility (e.g., dormitory) is included north of Houston or a hotel south of Houston. If you can bring enough lots together, you can build to the sky. Hotel owners are cashing in on the south of Houston zoning as I write. Hotels cannot be built north of Houston, under current zoning, except in the commercial zones on 3rd Avenue and The Bowery. That's why it's so important to try to get the Bowery included in the rezoning. If the rezoning goes through without the Bowery, developers, unable to build any more huge hotels south of Houston, will line the Bowery with them all the way down to Canal, and Chinatown will become the next frontier for the bulldozer Gentrification.

All three rezoning proposals would end the community facility/dormitory and hotel bonuses. The DCP plan would bring upscale development, only 20% of it affordable, to Delancey, Chrystie, Houston and D.

The CB3 plan would bring less development to the avenues, 30% of it affordable, more significant development, 30% affordable, to Houston and Delancey and huge development, 30% affordable, to Chrystie.

The LESRRD alternative would bring, in effect, no development at all of any kind.

The controversy in rezoning in a nutshell: to get 20% affordable housing, the neighborhood must accept the development of 80% market-rate housing. The CB's 30%-70% is better, but still not good from a preservationist point of view.

It's been my position that inviting developers in will irreparably harm the LES/EV. The neighborhood would be transformed into an upscale playground -- more banks, bars and chain stores. No more Loisaida. Lots more pressure to evict low-rent long-time tenants. As the wealthy are drawn to development, the trend will edge towards Chinatown, threatening one of Manhattan's few remaining vital, ethnic communities and New York's first outsider immigrant neighborhood -- it is the site of Five Points.

If, however, the entire neighborhood is capped, including the Bowery, the rich will have to invade someplace else, and that someplace else will become the trendy place to be and the pressure will shift off us. That would help save what's left of Loisaida and the affordable housing that's still here.

* FAR is a measure of volume, so it's not the same as number of stories. With an FAR of 1, you can build a one story building covering the entire lot or a two story building covering half the lot or a three story building covering a third of the lot etc. In New York, buildings generally must leave 30'-deep courtyard space, so an FAR of 3.44 works out to at least 5 stories. If the building is built more shallowly, it could rise higher. All the above plans include height caps as well as FAR caps, but the FAR caps are more important because they limit the actual amount of space the building occupies regardless of its shape.

Scoping testimony

Friends,
If you care about living here
If you care about this place
If you care about history
If you care about the future
If you care about community
If you care about overdevelopment
If you care about the eviction of tenants
If you care about the warehousing of apartments
If you care about giant hotels and mega-dormitories
If you care about life in the Lower East Side & East Village

then tell the Department of City Planning Monday.

The DCP's Scoping Session is the moment for you to express what the community wants for the future of the LES and East Village. If you care about preserving this neighborhood from increasing development and gentrification, come forward and tell DCP that

you do not want construction on your rooftop,
you do not want demolitions and redevelopment,
you do not want to lose our broad, bright avenues,
you do not want upzoning,

that you want this neighborhood to survive as it is and has been for over a hundred years. A community. The downest, homiest, funkyest, realest, mixedest, anarchistest, leftest, best community in the world.

I will ask that the three following alternatives be included in the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement:
1. include the Bowery in the C4-4A zone,
2. do not increase the current 3.44 FAR on the avenues,
3. do not upzone Houston, Delancey, Chrystie or D.

1. Inclusion of the Bowery: the impact of this zoning on the Bowery could be devastating. Unable to build their hotels south of Houston, developers will look to the Bowery where hotels can still be built. The EIS must include a study of the Bowery. LESRRD asks that DCP extend the C4-4A zoning to the Bowery. Most Bowery buildings are four stories or lower. Nearly all the rest are only five stories tall. It is home to some of the oldest, most historic structures in New York (e.g. 185 & 357).

2. Keep the current 3.44 FAR for the avenues: virtually all of 1st Avenue and most of 2nd, A, B and C are lined with buildings 5-stories or lower , FAR 3.44 or less. Raising the FAR to 4 will mean rooftop additions all across the avenues. Landlords use the construction of extensions as a means of turning residences into construction sites to harass tenants out of their homes. Four-story buildings will be warehoused in preparation for demolition and redevelopment. The low-rise, broad, open Civil War context of the East Village avenues will be darkened beyond recognition and solely for money, no other reason.

3. No upzoning on Houston, Delancey, Chrystie or D: Inclusionary up-Zoning on Houston has already brought us the Avalon Building and Whole Foods. The character of the neighborhood cannot survive more 80% market-rate glass&steel intrusions. Added development causes secondary displacement of residents and mom-and-pop businesses. Let's keep developers away, let's not invite them in. A reasonable zoning for these streets: R7B (FAR 3, height cap 75 ft) perhaps with an inclusionary housing bonus to 4. That will ensure that no one currently living in affordable housing will be displaced for the sake of promises of affordable housing.

A general alternative proposal for the entire district including the Bowery:

* maintain the current 3.44 FAR,
* remove the community facility bonus,
* cap heights at 70 feet (3.44 FAR = an average 5 story tenement, so the added height won't threaten existing tenements.)


The closest existing contextual zonings would be R6A and R7B and for south of Houston, C4-3A. Zoning designations like these but with 3.44 FAR would fit the neighborhood like a glove.

Don't forget to sign the petition to include the Bowery:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/BAN62007/petition.html

Scoping Meeting for the Environmental Impact Statement on the EV/LES Rezoning:
Department of City Planning,
Spector Hall,
22 Reade Street
June 25, 2-5pm, 6-8:45pm