Hell's Kitchen Online 4/2/00
http://hellskitchen.net "All the News the Times Won't Print"
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At its April 3 meeting, the Clinton Special District Coalition (CSDC) voted
to neither support nor oppose the Unified Bulk Program (UBP) as a complete
package, but is also urging Community Board 4 and others to weigh heavily
before lending support to a citywide zoning package that even most zoning
experts fail to understand.
CSDC is urging Board 4 to take the Board 2 approach:
"rather than give a simple recommendation for or against
the Unified Bulk Program, CB#2 feels that the interests of
the District would best be served by providing comments on
what we like, what we do not like and what we would like to
see added, amended or clarified."
A call for more time and more study seemed to be the central question at a
forum held Tuesday night by the Municipal Arts Society and Citizens Union.
Virtually all who spoke urged City Planning to give communities more time
to study the potential impacts and unintended consequences of the plan.
Board 4 is expected to vote on a resolution on the Unified Bulk Program
tonight, April 5th. A Public Hearing starts at 6 pm and the board will vote
later in the meeting. The meeting will be at Hudson Guild/Fulton Center,
119 Ninth Avenue (17th/18th Streets).
CSDC's resolution states:
While some components of the UBP may be good, others may be undesirable or
harmful. Although the Department of City Planning (DCP) Positive
Declaration states there may be significant impacts in sixteen categories,
the Draft Environmental Impact Statement dismisses the potential of any
such impacts.
Further study is needed to identify consequences, intended or unintended.
But the DCP has not given communities the tools they need to properly
analyze the plan's impacts, including models and examples of how the UBP
would work in various zoning districts.
The complexity and size of the UBP calls for careful examination. The 1961
Zoning Resolution was the product of many years of study and debate. In
2000, DCP is giving only a few months to consider a comprehensive "all or
none" proposal that may be beneficial to some neighborhoods, benign to some
and destructive to others.
DCP's argument that the UBP must be passed now to avoid the fear of further
inappropriate development, might have validity if city residents knew what
they were getting or if DCP had consulted with communities prior to the
plan's certification. A goal of UBP may be simplicity, but the proposal is
hardly understood, even by experts.
It would be unwise for CSDC to approve a citywide zoning package where such
support could justify any or all of the plan's provisions and their impact
on other neighborhoods. One size does not fit all neighborhoods.
Therefore we urge all to express opinions on the UBP with clarity and
caution, listing the good and bad, but withholding overall approval or
disapproval unless and until they are certain the overall plan is
beneficial to the city.
Design Special Permit
Of special concern is DCP's proposal for a Design Special Permit where a
panel of architects could advise the City Planning Commission that
exceptional design warrants a waiver of bulk requirements or an increase in
bulk.
No amount of tinkering with the makeup of the panel or who makes such
appointments would mitigate the devaluation to community review.
Such a panel dilutes the influence of local and borough boards and alters
the balances built into ULURP. Design reviews "professionalize" the
contextual and community character judgments that community boards now
make. Against a finding of an excellent design, what weight will be given
to a negative finding by a community board? Would community needs for
housing, health, transportation and environmental concerns be shunted aside
simply because a well-connected developer's building is judged worthy?
Such panels could hardly have any effective objectivity and will be easily
guided by politics and contributions from powerful developers.
With expert panelists drawn from the architectural community,
considerations of professional courtesy will be almost impossible to avoid.
Consider the incentives: if paid, there will be sufficient reason to want
to please whoever appoints them; if unpaid, their bias still must be
towards the developers on whom they must depend for future work. In either
case, a design panel must lean toward granting special permits, not denying
them.
We do not believe there is suddenly a crisis of design simply because DCP
has suggested it. It's a strawman issue created to obscure City Hall's
all-to-obvious attack on community review. When process is no longer on the
side of communities, there will be nothing left.
This is a fundamentally flawed concept and we urge it be rejected.
We continue to look at other issues:
A mandated minimum streetwall height is not necessarily desirable. Some
areas (i.e., Eighth Avenue) needs variety, not a sterile conformity of
office/large retail buildings creating canyons without light and air. On
the other hand Ninth Avenue between 42nd and 57th Streets calls for fairly
uniform low-rise residential buildings.
DCP's height limits are not a panacea. 495 feet on Eighth Avenue and 140
feet on Ninth Avenue would allow maximum use of mechanical space and bulk
obtained by Zoning Lot Mergers.
City Planning has not adequately dealt with the utilization of mechanical
space and below-grade FAR. Nor has DCP defined what constitutes a minor
modification, allowing a change to be a DCP authorization or certification,
not a Special Permit.
We are also concerned about the UBP's impact on the use of Community
Facilities and the potential reduction of Open Space.