by Albert Amateau
The city’s plan for northern Tribeca gives developers more opportunities to build bulky buildings if the developers also build affordable housing.
An earlier plan for northern Tribeca, drafted by Community Board 1, gave developers a bulk bonus for the area immediately surrounding the Holland Tunnel entrance, but the city’s plan extends that area to the northwest, adding about seven blocks where buildings could get bulkier.
Expanding the inclusionary housing area will “maximize affordable housing opportunities,” said Jennifer Torres, spokesperson for the Department of City Planning.
The smaller inclusionary housing zone that C.B. 1 suggested left too few opportunities for developers to take advantage of the bulk bonus and build affordable housing, said Michael Levine, director of land use and planning for C.B. 1. The expanded zone includes several blocks sandwiched between Watts and Canal Sts., along with a narrow strip of blocks just east of Greenwich St. from Canal St. down to Beach St.
Carole DeSaram, chairperson of C.B. 1’s Tribeca Committee, said she wasn’t sure that bulkier buildings would fit into northwest Tribeca. The city’s plan would allow developers to build projects with up to a 7.2 floor-to-area ratio as long as they built 20 percent permanent affordable housing either on site, in C.B. 1 or within half a mile. Without the bonus, developers would be limited to a 5.4 F.A.R. The height limit is 120 feet either way.
The affordable housing discussions are part of City Planning’s rezoning of northern Tribeca to convert it from a manufacturing zone to a mixed-use neighborhood where developers can build residential buildings as of right. The rezoning will undergo an environmental review and uniform land use review procedure next spring.
C.B. 1’s Tribeca Committee has been working on the rezoning for years and passed two resolutions detailing what they want to see. The committee wants northern Tribeca to have similar zoning to southern Tribeca, but with limits on the size of retail spaces and limits on the number of cell phone stores and banks.
But City Planning wants northern Tribeca’s rezoning to be identical to southern Tribeca, without any of the tailoring C.B. 1 suggested. C.B. 1 wanted to limit retail stores to 2,500 square feet on narrow streets and 5,000 square feet on wide streets, while City Planning wants to replicate the limits in southern Tribeca: 10,000 square feet on narrow streets and 20,000 square feet on wide streets.
City Planning and C. B. 1 had a similar fight 13 years ago in southern Tribeca and the city’s idea for larger retail spaces prevailed.
“These restrictions have been effective in the South Tribeca area, creating a mix of retail from small cafes and boutique fashion shops to larger furniture and warehouse stores,” Torres wrote in an e-mail to Downtown Express.
Edith Hsu-Chen, the new director of City Planning’s Manhattan office, said the community board’s retail restrictions would prohibit businesses like furniture showrooms, which are already in parts of Tribeca.
Levine, of C.B. 1, said the board was worried that if the market prices out large businesses like furniture stores, they could be replaced by clubs, as happened in the Meatpacking District. DeSaram would rather see businesses like coffee shops and cleaners.
“We need smaller spaces for smaller stores, and stores that meet the needs of the community,” DeSaram said. She added that City Planning should also look for new school sites and places to add recreational space.
Marc Ameruso, a C.B. 1 member, said the board’s plan for northern Tribeca “was the culmination of three years of work and dozens of meetings.”
“City Planning should seriously understand that North Tribeca and South Tribeca are two different neighborhoods,” Ameruso added. “North Tribeca is unique unto itself.”
The Tribeca Committee will discuss the rezoning at their October meeting and may decide then whether to oppose or support the city’s plan.
Levine, from C.B. 1, said that although the board isn’t getting exactly what it wanted in the rezoning, he is glad to see the plans move forward.
“We’re getting a lot out of it,” he said.
With reporting
