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Solid answers on air rights BERMAN, continued from p. 13
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November 7, 2013
attempt to do so appears imminent right now, this remains an important long-term question that needs to be resolved. The second step, or steps, which the Trust and state legislators say will determine where air rights will be used are a state “General Project Plan,” or a city rezoning, or possibly more than one of each. The exact terms of a G.P.P. would be decided by the governor, the Assembly speaker and the state Senate majority leader — Albany’s proverbial “three men in a room.” In such a case, our local communities would have little or no leverage over the final outcome; G.V.S.H.P. and several of our fellow community groups have already written to the governor to say that such a process is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the other option is not that much better. A city rezoning must be approved by the City Council and also the City Planning Commission, the latter which is controlled by the mayor. Because the City Council gives a lot of deference to the local councilmember on land use issues, local communities can have some leverage over the outcome. But the full Council can ignore the wishes of the local councilmember; plus, that councilmember may vote against the wishes of his or her own community. The N.Y.U. expansion plan, the rezoning of St. Vincent’s Hospital for condo development and the Chelsea Market rezoning, allowing large additions atop that historic complex, were all approved through this process. Finally, we need to know where the air rights can be used in this “one block inland” zone. In the Village, some sites are probably safe from possible air rights transfers — such as those that we have successfully fought to get landmarked in recent years, and those with co-op and condo buildings, which are hard to demolish because the consent of all owners would be needed. This leaves two kinds of sites where air rights could be transferred and used — those with “contextual zoning,” which limits the allowable size and height of new development, and those without. G.V.S.H.P. and many Villagers fought hard for and got contextual zoning for a patchwork of sites between Morton and Horatio Sts. in 2005. (We sought it for a much broader extent, but the city only consented to a more-limited area.) Because of the strict height caps contextual zoning creates, the only way the air rights could be used on these sites would be if these hard-fought-for protections were undone. This would be a tremendous blow to the community. The other option is for the air rights to be used on sites with no contextual zoning. These are sites that do not have specific height limits, and the primary limitation upon new development’s size is the number of square feet the zoning allows to be built there. Allowing air rights to be transferred from the park to these sites would increase the number of square feet that could
be built there, and would mean that new development would become bigger, or taller — or both — as compared to what could be built currently. For example, the St. John’s Center building, across from Pier 40, has no contextual zoning, and is being looked at as a potential receiving site for air rights. The current zoning allows 1 million square feet of development on that very large site. (Using the aforementioned city data, that’s the equivalent of four Trump Soho’s, or about the size of the Chrysler Building or The New York Times headquarters at Eighth Ave. and 41st St.) But if air rights were added, the new structure could be even larger. There are several other sites in the Meatpacking District and elsewhere in this corridor where air rights could be transferred that similarly have no landmark protections, no contextual zoning, and no co-op or condo buildings, and thus could face similar air rights development scenarios, albeit on a smaller scale. The only alternative to these scenarios is the possibility of using the air rights to expand the allowable uses that could be developed on a site, rather than the development’s allowable size. For example, could air rights be used to grant a developer the right to build a 50,000-square-foot residential building on a site that currently only allows a 50,000-square-foot hotel or office building to be constructed? There is some precedent for doing so, though this exact maneuver has never been done before. We have asked about the feasibility of this option with city and state officials, and are researching the answer ourselves. If it turns out this is not possible, then there will be just two troubling possible routes for using the air rights: stripping contextual zoning protections we fought for specifically to limit the size of development, or allowing even larger development on sites without contextual zoning, where many of us would probably say the permitted size of new development is already too great. Neither option that the legislation leaves us with seems very appealing. To be fair, a city rezoning or a state G.P.P. could be undertaken at any time to allow larger development along our waterfront. But the difference is that this new legislation links increasing the size of development along our waterfront to the sale of air rights to fund the Hudson River Park. This creates a massive incentive for allowing this increased development to happen, and provides a powerful tool to any developer seeking to sell their plans to the city and state officials who will decide their fate, and the powerful editorial boards who frequently weigh in on and influence these decisions. Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. Please join your neighbors at the town hall at 328 W. 14th St. at 6:30 p.m. on Wed., Nov. 13, to find out more about what you can do. Berman is executive director, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
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