BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | In an about-face, the United States Postal Service (USPS) sent a representative to Community Board 4’s full board meeting on Wed., Jan. 7, to explain aspects of the air rights sale of Old Chelsea Station.
The community was dismayed to learn of the sale late last year, after fighting in 2013 to keep the post office at 217 W. 18th St. open. Elected officials had pushed for a longer public comment period, which lasted fifteen days after a Nov. 26 notice was posted in the lobby. They also made repeated request for a USPS presence at CB4 Land Use committee and full board meetings.
It had seemed as if the USPS would not budge on either request. But in another twist, their representative said that he would give the public more time.
“I have no problem extending that public comment period,” said Gregory C. Lackey, USPS’ realty asset manager for the Northeast. “The postal service is a part of your community and we want your comments. We will evaluate your comments. They will not be ignored.”
The deadline for elected officials and CB4 to comment is Jan. 26.
“I wanted to be here. We’re not required to be here.The process that we’re involved in, the development of these air rights, does not require public meetings as it would if we were moving the post office,” said Lackey. “I’m here voluntarily.”
Before he spoke, Betty Mackintosh, co-chairperson of the CB4’s Chelsea Land Use Committee, enumerated several points that it would like the USPS to address. The first was whether the request for proposals, or RFP, will require the design of the new residential development to respect and relate to the existing historic building as well as whether the developer would be required to meet with CB4 and the community for their input.
Would the RFP, Mackintosh asked, take into account CB4’s housing policy to include 30 percent affordable apartments? Are the air rights restricted to the area above the post office? Would the USPS provide CB4 a zoning analysis? How much space will be shared between the post office and residents, and will this affect operations? Her inquiry concluded by asking if the post office will remain open during construction. If not, what are the plans to replace services?
Lackey read a prepared statement and then spoke about some of the community’s concerns. He emphasized that the post office will continue to function as it has. Delivery and retail services will in no way be altered.
“Nothing is being removed from that building,” he said.
Change in the air (rights)? The USPS is being more communicative about Old Chelsea Station, but that didn’t allay concerns at Jan. 7’s full board meeting of CB4.
The bid for the air rights, which the USPS anticipates starting in the “near future” is also for some portions of the property, said Lackey.
The residential building will contain some “common elements,” such as the roof, with the post office. Some of the property may be used for a gym as well as additional mechanical or structural components necessary for the building. On the east side of the Old Chelsea Station, there is a single door that will be expanded to a double door for the lobby entrance to the residential building, he said.
Around 5,000 to 6,000 feet will be shaved off for the residential building, which will be eight stories and 83 feet above the existing roof deck. It will be set back from the front of the building to “preserve the aesthetics of the existing facade,” he said.
Lackey said that there may have been some “misconceptions about the intent of this request for proposals.” The RFP is not to develop the air rights, but rather to sell them. The developer will be the one who has to comply with all laws, he said.
The developer will make the decision whether or not to transfer the air rights, he said.
“The RFP is really providing guidelines for a suggested approach to the developer,” said Lackey. “We’re not going to tell the developer what he has to do. That’s not the intent of the RFP.”
However, Lackey said he would try to incorporate some of Mackintosh’s points.
“We all know that [the Old Chelsea Station] is a beautiful building in this neighborhood,” he said. “It’s a historic structure and I know that there’s going to be a lot of emotion over whether or not this tower is going [to] have an impact on the historic significance of that building. That is the whole point of 106.”
Lackey was referring to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Due to the fact that the Old Chelsea Station is a National Register listed building, the USPS is required to assess whether the sale of the air rights will have an “adverse effect” on it. The USPS has found no adverse effect.
In a Sept. 17 letter to the postal service, the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) did not concur and stated that the proposal will have an adverse effect.
The Advisory Council of Historic Preservation was asked to evaluate the proposal as well, and stated in a Dec. 5 letter to the USPS’ determination that there would be no adverse effects was based on an “insufficient assessment.”
Lackey said that the postal service will respond to the agencies’ comment and that the process is not complete.
Section 106 does require that the developer’s designs will be also be subject to review, he said.
During the public discussion, Lesley Doyel thanked Lackey for his presentation and said she was glad to hear that there will be more time for the public to comment.
Doyel is the co-president of Save Chelsea, which had sounded the alarm about the air rights sale when her organization received a letter in November. The Nov. 5 missive stated, “The consulting parties and the public were provided with a 30 day period to review and comment” and that neither “provided any comments or views on the undertaking or the finding of the USPS.”
It also said that Save Chelsea had received an Aug. 14 letter, which Doyel said they never got.
Doyel said this is really a matter of credibility and she hoped that the USPS would be transparent throughout this process.
“This is a vital and very important postal facility not only for Chelsea, but for all the surrounding neighborhoods,” she said. “We’re going to hold you to it.”
When the community and elected officials found out about the possible sale in November it was “blindsided” as Assemblymember Richard Gottfried put it. Gottfried was unable to attend the meeting because he was in Albany for the legislative session.
A member of his staff, Eli Szenes-Strauss, said, “We very much appreciate the postal service sending a representative here today. This is not the first time that development plans had been announced for the Old Chelsea Station prior to community consultation and elected official notification. In fact, it is now an established pattern.
“The pattern is that the sale of the development rights is announced in a way that is unlikely to bring it much attention. There is a very brief public comment period established, elected officials request an extension of the public comment period and then we have a community board meeting. We hope this is our last experience of that pattern.”
Will Rogers, a W. 16th St. resident who spoke during the public discussion, also said that the USPS needed to be more transparent. “This is going on all over the United States,” said Rogers, “whereby the United States Postal Service gives small communities 15 days, the same amount of process we were to be given — and see if you can imagine being someplace in the middle of nowhere and all of sudden your post office is gone.”
Jackie Blank, speaking on behalf of Congressman Jerrold Nadler, said that while he is pleased to hear USPS’ reassurances that the postal services will remain on site, “there are a number of outside issues that must be addressed. For example, my office has already heard significant community concerns regarding neighborhood character…and the level of service during construction.”
Those concerns were also brought up by Matt Green from Councilmember Corey Johnson’s office, who also asked whether there will be a preference for affordable housing included in the RFP.
Lackey said that the USPS is selling the “surplus” air rights “as part of its efforts to address its serious financial challenges” and to raise revenue.
“The postal service has always relied upon its first class monopoly for most of its earning,” he said. “First class mail is declining as people use the Internet…The Postal Service is seeking alternate sources of revenue,” he said. “We are disposing a lot of buildings because we are consolidating operations, we end up with empty buildings or buildings that are largely vacant. And we’re selling those buildings.”
State Senator Brad Hoylman said, “A federal agency has no business undermining the expertise of local and state agencies” — in this instance SHPO and CB4 — “and substituting its own opinion without consultation. The sale of air rights would amount to theft of our local public spaces, neighborhood character and history — a reversed form of eminent domain where the federal government is privatizing public resources.”
