New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced a multi-phase initiative to create up to 4,000 new apartments in Central Brooklyn. Known as the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, projections also anticipate the creation of more than 1,500 income-restricted homes centered on a 13-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue.
A proposal to rezone 73 blocks of Jerome Avenue in The Bronx has passed the Land Use Committee, putting the plan another step closer to realization. The City Council will vote on the matter March 21st, where it is expected to pass. This comes as part of the Mayor’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) program. If the rezoing is approved as expected, roughly 4,600 new apartments could be created, with 1,150 expected to be occupied as affordable housing.
The Queens waterfront has seen substantive improvements over the past decade, with construction on TF Cornerstone’s East Coast Long Island City complex wrapping in 2014, and additional work on Hunters Point South by both TFC and Related Companies progressing since. But to the north of those projects, the urban fabric along the East River and its tributaries has remained underutilized. That may not be the case for much longer, as plastics company Plaxall has submitted plans to create a new special district along Anable Basin. The proposal would result in skyscrapers up to 695′ in height, yielding new housing, hundreds of light industrial jobs, a multi-level public esplanade, and a new public school.
The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is now looking into proposing the rezoning of the Brooklyn neighborhood Gowanus, Politico reported. Beginning this fall, the Department of City Planning will conduct a study of the neighborhood. Following the completion of the study, the city will decide whether or not to officially propose a rezoning and begin the review and approval process. Between 2013 and 2015, local politicians met with community leaders and residents to discuss future changes to the neighborhood. The analysis, called Bridging Gowanus, determined more residential development would be acceptable only if affordable units are mixed into the new construction and existing manufacturing and office spaces are retained. If an official rezoning proposal is eventually launched, it should take roughly seven months for it to be passed.
Earlier this week, the City Council voted to approve a rezoning proposal that would allow landlords of the commercial properties with public pedestrian arcades along Water Street, between Fulton and Whitehall streets in the Financial District, to convert the arcades into retail space in exchange for renovating adjacent public plazas. The total amount of space that could be converted spans 110,000 square feet across 20 buildings, DNAinfo reported. The rezoning requires retail conversions of greater than 7,500 square feet to be approved through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). It also limits the amount of street frontage chain banks and drugstores can take up, and requires the entire height of the arcade to be built out. Future renovations to the existing public plazas in the area could include new seating and planters, among other upgrades.
