BY JACKSON CHEN | A nonprofit neighborhood organization claims the Department of City Planning is purposely stalling the rezoning plan it submitted four months ago for its nook of the Upper East Side.
The proposal, put forward by the East River Fifties Alliance, would downzone and restrict the height limits from East 52nd to East 59th Streets and from First Avenue to the East River to 260 feet, or roughly 25 stories. The plan would allow developers to build bulkier only if they included affordable housing and/ or community amenities.
The neighborhood group won support from City Councilmembers Ben Kallos and Dan Garodnick, Borough President Gale Brewer, and State Senator Liz Krueger, who all signed on as co-applicants to the rezoning proposal’s pre-application. With a stacked list of local politicians who’ve already signed on, ERFA was expecting to get through all the approvals fairly quickly.
But the Department of City Planning is proving to be a roadblock, according to Alan Kersh, ERFA’s president.
“We’re at a loss as to why we’re getting a runaround from the mayor and City Planning when we’ve done all we can to embrace their initiatives,” Kersh said.
He added that the group submitted a well researched and professionally prepared proposal, which City Planning was warm to during their initial talks.
According to Kersh, the agency offered a possible compromise of a 500-foot maximum height, but the group deemed it “still way out of scale in the neighborhood and unacceptable.”
After months of negotiations, city staffers have backed away from their willingness to work with ERFA, Kersh said, adding that they’re now refusing to discuss the height limits or affordable housing for the plan at all.
But according to the Department of City Planning, the agency is providing ERFA with guidance on its proposed application based on planning principles and precedent.
According to the department, this is a normal and necessary component of the planning process and not a delaying tactic. The department added that its responsibility is to ensure that the rezoning application meets necessary standards for public review, and that once it enters the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, it will be judged on its merits.
Kersh and his organization emphasize that their rezoning plan fits with the city’s agenda of encouraging affordable housing and say they are dumbfounded as to why the city isn’t more cooperative with the proposal. To garner more awareness of their situation and attempt to put the flames to City Planning’s feet, ERFA held a May 10 public rally on Sutton Square, just off Sutton Place.
“We think it’s the right solution where the community is advocating for affordable housing,” Kersh said. “We’re trying to understand the mayor, who’s so keen on affordable housing, and why this is not appealing.”
Echoing their exasperation, local electeds said they’re planning to exert additional pressure on City Planning regarding the application they’ve co-signed.
“It seems to me the group is doing what the mayor wants,” Brewer told Manhattan Express. “I mean the city is supportive of affordable housing, right? And they want economic diversity, right?”
Brewer said she hasn’t heard from City Planning regarding ERFA’s proposal and added that if the agency didn’t like the group’s proposal, it should propose something that was equally beneficial for the area.
As the local councilmember, Kallos has an even more direct investment in the issue than the borough president, and he noted that City Planning’s lack of embrace for the proposal is at odds with the posture taken by all other community stakeholders and decision-makers.
According to Kallos, the Department of City Planning never responded to Community Board 6’s resolution that requested it review and discuss a proposed supertower at 426-432 East 58th Street. Better known as 3 Sutton Place, progress on making the 1,000-foot building a reality is currently in limbo as its developer, the Bauhouse Group, and lenders sort out financial disputes in bankruptcy court.
Despite bankruptcy cases often getting mired in court, Kersh said that each day wasted in considering ERFA’s rezoning plan hobbles the community’s hopes of once and for all defeating the supertower plan on East 58th Street.
If the stall continues for six months, Kallos said, the coalition of elected officials backing ERFA would look to force a certification and vote from City Planning.
“When faced with voting in favor of the residents of New York and an affordable city with schools or in favor of buildings for billionaires,” Kallos said of the City Planning Commission, “I hope they will choose New York over billionaires.”
Since ERFA’s proposal is still waiting for application certification, the City Planning Commission is not yet involved and a date has not been set for a vote.
Editor’s note: The original version of this story stated that the East River Fifties Alliance was willing to see buildings constructed “bigger” if they included affordable housing and/ or community amenities, which incorrectly suggested the group was okay with buildings that exceed 260 feet in height. The group, in fact, was talking about the “bulk” or “density” of buildings, not their height.
