Hell's Kitchen Online 2/6/00

[kitchen]

Hell's Kitchen Online                               2/6/00
http://hellskitchen.net "All the News the Times Won't Print"
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IN THIS ISSUE ... 

1. Way Out West!
2. A.G. Spitzer sues City over Garbage Trucking through Lincoln Tunnel (Times)
3. Coliseum's Coming Down (Daily News)
4. New York Apple Tours builds illegal extension (Times)
5. Ryan Center Assisted-Living Project (Times)
   (this article is essentially a press release by the Ryan Center 
   and does not reflect how the Ryan Center failed to consider the
   community's wishes in the design of its building or their attitude)

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WAY OUT WEST!

* The CLINTON SPECIAL DISTRICT COALITION (CSDC)
February meeting -- Monday, Feb. 7th at 8:00 p.m.
Hartley House, 413 West 46th St.

The meeting will start at 8:00 p.m. instead of the usual 7 p.m. 
because of the Bar Association Zoning forum (see below).

Tentative agenda includes: update on the 8th Ave. Air Rights law 
suit (yes, Rudy is appealing), Costco, New York Apple Tours, 
Rockrose Development (48th and 12th Ave.) and the new Joe Rose 
Zoning Plan (Unified Bulk Program).

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* FOR INFORMATION ON THE UNIFIED BULK PROGRAM:
What the city wants you to see: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/html/bulksum.html 
The entire text of the plan: http://hellskitchen.net/develop/unifiedbulk
The Zoning Handbook is at http://tenant.net/Other_Laws/zoning/zontitl.html

On Tuesday, Feb. 1, City Planning Commissioner Joe Rose spoke at Comunity Board 7 (Upper West
Side) about the Unified Bulk Program. He showed up an hour late and said virtually nothing. The
audience was not able to directly ask questions; instead written questions had to be submitted and
some were asked and some weren't.

The Unified Bulk Program zoning text is very large (536 pages) and very complex. On the surface,
it appears there will be parts of the plan that could harm Clinton/Hell's Kitchen. It's too early
to make a broad assessment, but this neighborhood should be very concerned. That's part of the
problem: City Planning did not consult with communities before they made the proposal and they are
putting the proposal on a fast track. It will take time for communities to absorb and analyze
this.

Some Joe Rose nuggets:

"It's necessary to rewrite the zoning resolution before the land runs out."

"For buildings that respect the area, they should be as-of-right. Not everything should be
burdened by community review."

He said he wanted to create the City Planning Commission Special Permit (a scaled-down version of
what is currently required) in order to "say 'yes' to developers in order to waive bulk
regulations." He's proposing a panel of architects to avoid "building by committee." (i.e.,
community review)

He does not like Inclusionary Housing [it's a philosophical thing with him]. "Affordable housing
does not get built by selling bulk."

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* The ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK will hold a forum this coming
Monday on City Planning Commissioner Joe Rose's "UNIFIED BULK PROGRAM" that could impact the
Clinton/Hell's Kitchen neighborhood in a variety of ways. We've been told this forum is open to
the public.

  The City's New Zoning Proposal: Bandage or Cure-All?
  A discussion of proposed changes to the City's Zoning Ordinance.
  Monday, February 7th 6:00-8:00 P.M.
  Association of the Bar, 42 West 44th St.

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* ZANZIBAR BAR/RESTAURANT at 643 Ninth Ave. withdrew its application for a sidewalk
cafe on the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue and 45th Street at the February Community Board 4
meeting. Although they had reduced the number of tables requested, residents of 45th and 46th
Streets opposed the application indicating the sidewalks were too narrow, pedestrian traffic was
high and a sidewalk cafe was inappropriate for that corner.

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IMPACT OF TRUCKING GARBAGE ACROSS HUDSON CHALLENGED
New York Times, Feb. 1, 2000
By Barbara Stewart

Contending that New York City is seriously polluting Manhattan's air with its new system of
trucking the borough's garbage to New Jersey, Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer of New York has
sued to force the city to submit a detailed environmental study and, if necessary, to reduce
diesel emissions from the trucks.

Of particular concern, the suit said, is the air quality in neighborhoods around the George
Washington Bridge and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, where scores of the garbage trucks idle in
heavy traffic.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, criticized an environmental
assessment of the truck exhaust done by the City Department of Sanitation before it began hauling
Manhattan's garbage to New Jersey in October.

In preparation for the closing of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island in December 2001, the
city has been hauling the waste to transfer stations in Newark and Elizabeth, from which it is
trucked to landfills in other states.

State officials said they were not suing over interstate hauling of garbage from the other
boroughs because it is too late to challenge those plans, which have been in place months longer.

All of the plans are intended to be temporary, lasting no more than five or six years, the city
says. In Manhattan, trucks used to haul garbage short distances to marine transfer stations along
the waterfront. Barges then hauled the waste to Fresh Kills. Under the new plan, 100 or so trucks
make the longer trip each day to New Jersey using the three river crossings. The city's
environmental consultant, Urbitran Associates, said the truck emissions would have no effect on
air quality.

"We're confident that there is no adverse effect on the environment," Paula Young, a Sanitation
Department spokeswoman, said yesterday.

"We disagree," said Peter Lehner, chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau in Mr. Spitzer's
office. "These emissions have very real human consequences, and we know that the additional
pollution can be removed quickly and easily."

Coming as it did from Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, the lawsuit drew a sharp response yesterday from
the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the presumed Republican candidate for the Senate.
In a written statement, Deputy Mayor Joseph J. Lhota called the suit "an assault on the city" that
was "completely unreasonable and totally unsupported by the law."

"It is an embarrassment that the attorney general of New York does not know our environmental
laws," Mr. Lhota added. "The last time I looked, I thought Eliot Spitzer went to law school. Maybe
he should call his law school dean and ask for a refund."

Mr. Lehner acknowledged that the attorney general's office, in its lawsuit, is holding the city to
a higher standard than current federal regulations, which have been successfully challenged by the
trucking industry.

But he asserted that the State Environmental Quality Review Act gave Mr. Spitzer's office the
authority to challenge the accuracy and thoroughness of the city's environmental study. The law
requires a thorough environmental impact study of any government activity that could affect air or
water quality. According to Mr. Lehner, the city's study was preliminary and incomplete and
omitted any mention of an especially damaging pollutant, fine soot particles.

The soot particles, which are only a fraction of the width of a human hair, supply 90 percent of
diesel truck emissions.

Studies by the federal Environmental Protection Agency have concluded that the particles are
especially harmful and liable to cause asthma, lung damage and other health problems.

While the federal agency recently set strict emissions standards for the particles, a federal
judge in Washington agreed in May with a trucking association that in doing so, the agency had
overreached its authority, although the court found that the research showing the soot to be
especially harmful was sound. The agency is reviewing whether to appeal.

Mr. Lehner said the attorney general hoped to get around that federal ruling by using state law,
but Mr. Lhota said: "No state or city environmental quality review statute or regulations contains
such a requirement. This is nothing more than a figment of Spitzer's imagination."

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COLISEUM'S COMING DOWN 
First step in ongoing plans for new Columbus Centre complex 
Daily News, Feb. 1, 2000
By DANIELLE REED 

After years of lawsuits and false starts, the makeover of one of the city's most valuable and
best-known sites is beginning with the demolition of the New York Coliseum.

Columbus Circle — at the corner of Central Park South and the gateway to the upper West Side —
eventually will get a high-class facelift similar in spirit to the development that brought the
lucrative shine back to Times Square.

At its center, the new Columbus Centre complex will include a massive headquarters for AOL Time
Warner, which proposed the largest merger in U.S. history last month and would become the world's
biggest Internet company.

The city's final stamp of approval is pending and a completion date is years away.

Columbus Centre developer Related Cos. has started putting up scaffolding at the Coliseum behind
blue temporary walls around the building.

Related Cos. chief executive Stephen Ross estimated the Coliseum's dirty-white-colored walls would
start tumbling "sometime in the next couple of months."

"It's a first step in the right direction," Ross said.

Last year, Related Cos. won the right to develop the site, ending a real estate saga during which
the mid-1980s plans of Mortimer B. Zuckerman's Boston Properties were postponed and then
withdrawn. Zuckerman also is chairman and co-publisher of the Daily News.

The proposed 2.5-million-square-foot Columbus Centre will feature two 750-foot towers, a Mandarin
Oriental hotel, luxury condos and a home for the Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts.

Lincoln Center's presence "will generate a richer dimension than just another commercial
development," said Mitchell Moss, director of NYU's Taub Urban Research Center.

Civic groups who've been following the process aren't sorry to see the Coliseum come down. The
building is "going the way of other bad urban renewal projects," said Ellen Ryan, director of
planning issues for the Municipal Art Society.

Built in 1956, it was designed by architects working for the state and was used for decades as a
home for conventions before the Javits Center made it increasingly obsolete.

Four decades later — after pitched battles from Central Park conservationists and the Municipal
Art Society, who feared the effect of high-rise development on the neighborhood — new initiatives
to renovate the circle gained momentum.

Most recently, the city's Department of Design and Construction selected Vollmer Associates as
consultants on, everything from lighting to park benches. The Transit Authority also is seeking
ideas for a redesign of the Columbus Circle subway station, Ryan said.

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A BUILDING HOVERS OVER PEDESTRIANS' SHOULDERS
New York Times, February 5, 2000
By David W. Dunlap

Developers traditionally reach skyward to create more floor space for their buildings. Sometimes
they reach downward into bedrock. Rarely do they reach outward -- over a public sidewalk.

But that seems to be what happened at 236 West 54th Street, where a three-story addition is rising
atop an old theater that is now a visitors' center for New York Apple Tours. The addition has a
prowlike bay projecting about eight feet beyond the building line, with steel decking on each
floor.

At least for the moment.

"This is clearly an attempt to seize public space -- and a knowing attempt," said Kevin A.
Finnegan, co-chairman of the land-use and zoning committee of Community Board 5 in mid-Manhattan,
which filed a complaint that brought a city building inspector to the site.

"It is in many ways the worst kind of violation," Mr. Finnegan said, "because it's taking public
space for private use, with no public benefit whatsoever."

On Wednesday, the Buildings Department ordered a halt to construction on the grounds that the
project was "increasing floor area contrary to approved plans," in the words of the official
notice.

The prow itself is not the problem. It was approved by the Buildings Department as the framework
for a sign, which is permitted to extend over the sidewalk. The problem is the corrugated steel
deck that fills in the V shape of the prow on each of the new floors, adding roughly 300 square
feet of floor area to the building.

"What this does is create additional floor space," said William H. Daly, director of the Mayor's
Office of Midtown Enforcement, which sent a building inspector to the site after hearing from the
community board.

"Instead of having a bulkhead for a sign," Mr. Daly said, "we have what may be a bulkhead for a
sign plus additional floor space over the sidewalk." Most likely, the decking between the building
line and the tip of the prow will have to be removed.

Mr. Daly said the site would be reinspected in 10 days "to see if they have made any adjustment."
If there is no change, he said, a summons could be issued and the matter taken to Criminal Court.

Yesterday evening, noting that it was merely a tenant in the building, the tour company said the
landlord had "the appropriate permits for both the structure and the billboard in question."

"The architects are amending the existing permit to include the as-built construction, which will
remedy the Building Department's issues."

Public records show the owner as P.U.R. Realty Associates. A telephone number given for that
business has since been reassigned to a music management company.

New York Apple, which operates double-decker sightseeing buses, has run afoul of its neighbors and
government regulators in the past. Last month, test results were released showing that the
double-deckers, including those operated by New York Apple, emit more diesel pollution than city
buses.

And in November, the City Transportation Department said New York Apple had violated the terms of
a permit allowing it to use a bus stop on Eighth Avenue. Neighbors charged that, contrary to the
permit, New York Apple buses had double-parked and idled their engines.

"This is how they operate, outside the law whenever they can get away with it," Mr. Finnegan said.
"It seems like anything they do is on the edge or over the edge."

The building housing the company's new visitors' center originated in the mid-19th century as a
carriage house and was most recently a combination jazz club and bed-and-breakfast called the
Homefront. From the 1970's until 1995, when it was closed by city officials, it was an X-rated gay
movie house called the New David Cinema.

"We're certainly happy to see that legitimate businesses are moving into former adult
entertainment establishments," Mr. Daly said. "But we caution businesses that do that they have to
follow the rules."

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ASSISTED-LIVING PROJECT WITH A TWIST
New York Tiimes, February 4, 2000
By RACHELLE GARBARINE

Work has begun in the Manhattan neighborhood of Clinton on a building containing both a community
health center and 84 rental apartments for low- and moderate-income elderly tenants, who will be
supplied with meals and a modest level of personal service.

Eighty percent of the studio and two-bedroom apartments, with 430 and 640 square feet
respectively, are to be rented for $2,075 and $3,780 a month to people earning $61,000 to $70,000
a year. The other 20 percent of the units are to be rented for $823 and $1,646 a month to people
with annual incomes of $18,700 to $21,000.

Residents will receive, included in their rents, two meals a day as well as services like weekly
housekeeping and up to three hours a week of personal care, including help with grooming and
dressing. The apartments will be on the second to sixth floors of the six-story, L-shaped
building, which will rise over the next year on a site formerly used as a parking lot at 510 West
46th Street, on the southwest corner of 10th Avenue, paralleling the Amtrak rail line.

The nonprofit developer is Village Housing Development Fund, a subsidiary of Village Care of New
York, which is based in Manhattan and owns and operates home care agencies as well as two nursing
homes downtown, including the Village Nursing Home on 12th and Hudson Streets in Greenwich
Village. The cost to build the apartment part of the building, called Village Housing in Clinton,
will be $14.6 million.

The first floor of the building will house a 20,000-square-foot health center. That $12 million
project will be developed by the nonprofit Ryan Community Health Network of Manhattan, which owns
the site.

The new building will be organized as two separate condominiums; each of the nonprofit groups will
own its space. The savings derived from that dual ownership, along with the public financing, are
among the reasons that Village Care has been able to develop the housing project, its first in
Manhattan.

"We were encountering people coming to our nursing homes who did not need 24-hour care and we
wanted to offer them an option," said Arthur Y. Webb, president of Village Care of New York.

Most of the assisted-living projects in New York City are intended for higher-income residents and
offer more personal-care services, like daily help in bathing and dressing, and a broader range of
social activities. Those rents generally run from $3,000 to $6,000 a month.

Mr. Webb said getting the Clinton project to this point took three years and required tapping into
public subsidies, finding a reasonably priced site and reducing building and operating costs.

He said his group was aware that the Ryan Community Health Network planned to build a one-story
health center on the 46th Street site, which under current zoning could accommodate a six-story
building. So he worked out a deal with Ryan to buy the air rights over the center for $1.1
million, enabling Village Care to develop the housing on the upper floors of the building and to
share the cost of hiring an architect and construction company.

Julio Bellber, Ryan's president, said he "liked the idea because it gives us additional capital to
operate the center." The health center, which is independent of the housing and financed
separately, will be operated by the William F. Ryan Community Health Center, an affiliate of the
Ryan Community Health Network. Ryan has two other health centers in Manhattan, one on East Third
Street and the other on West 97th Street.

Administrative, food and janitorial services, among other things, will be provided under an
agreement with Village Care, helping to reduce the project's operating costs. Mr. Webb said the
savings would come through centralizing those functions at Village Care of New York, which will
avoid duplication and cut labor costs. Because of this, he said, there will be 17 full-time staff
members at the housing project instead of the 22 that otherwise would have been needed.

But he added that securing financing was the key to the project.

Village Care is using $876,000 of its own money to construct the housing and pieced together the
rest from several city and state housing agencies. The city's Housing Development Corporation
provided $12.35 million in tax-exempt bond financing under its middle-income housing program, and
the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development granted a $1 million interest-free
loan. The State Housing Trust Fund is also providing a $560,000 interest-free loan to help
subsidize the low-income units. To ensure that rents remain affordable, the project also was
granted a 34-year real estate tax exemption from the city.

The Clinton building, designed by the Manhattan architectural firm of Horowitz & Immerman, will be
clad in red and gray brick and have two separate entrances, one on 10th Avenue for the center and
the other on 46th Street for the housing. Planned amenities for the housing project include a
common dining room, a library and a fitness room, all of which will be on the second floor and
lead out to a landscaped deck.

Mr. Webb said leasing of the units would be done by lottery, with applications available through
Village Care of New York by August.