Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Dan Gorodnik, Chair of the City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning. Welcome to today's review session of the City Planning Commission and a belated Happy Halloween to all of you. We are joined today by Vice Chair Knuckles, Commissioners Benjamin, Cerullo, Dweck and Gold on Zoom, Kirmani, Maureen, Osorio and Ramparshad. Welcome to all of you.

Before we get to our agenda, I would just like to go over some recent news from the Department of City Planning. Last week, Mayor Adams administration held a citywide day of action to share information with everyday New Yorkers about City of Yes for housing opportunity. Over 100 senior administration officials and staffers across city government distributed educational materials, answered questions and informed New Yorkers about this important initiative to enable the creation of a little bit more housing in every neighborhood. We are facing a citywide housing crisis with historically low vacancy rates in all five boroughs. And so our solutions must be citywide as well.

Every neighborhood plays its part. We can build a more affordable, inclusive and equitable city for all that offers people the housing options they need. Thanks to all the staff who made this possible and to all New Yorkers who met with us to discuss City of Yes. We also unveiled our updated draft Midtown South mixed use plan, MSMX in other words, to facilitate the production of around 9,700 homes, up to 2,800 of them permanently income restricted affordable across 42 Manhattan blocks where housing today is just not permitted. Midtown South is one of the most transit and job rich areas of the city, but it has long been held back by antiquated zoning that has restricted new housing.

Thanks to recent action in Albany to repeal the state's arbitrary 12 FAR cap, we were able to create new high density residential zoning districts with mandatory inclusionary housing in City Of Yes for Housing opportunity. Now for the first time, we are proposing to map these districts as part of the Midtown South plan to deliver more of the homes that New Yorkers urgently need in the heart of the city. The updated MSMX plan is a bold step toward building a more inclusive and dynamic Midtown and you can learn more about it at midtownsouthplan.nyc. Moving to another neighborhood plan in the works. We've had a busy few weeks of waterfront focused public engagement in Long Island City.

It began with a walking tour from Queensbridge Park to Gantry State Park in which we discussed opportunities to expand Waterfront access and connectivity through the Long Island City Neighborhood Plan. We dive deeper into this topic the following week during an evening Waterfront workshop that was similarly well attended. I want to thank everybody who joined us and who shared their thoughts and perspectives. Finally, I think most of us know, tomorrow is Election Day. I know it has been said often, but this is truly a consequential election for President and everywhere in between.

Besides the presidential contest, we are there are also elections for the United States Senate, New York Assembly and six ballot measures for New York City. I hope many of those in the room and watching this livestream have voted early. But if not, please head to your polling site tomorrow and make your voice heard. On to our agenda for today, we will start with several land use actions related to two potential development scenarios for the Western Rail Yards located on a superblock along West 33rd Street between 11th And 12th Avenues in Hudson Yards. While both proposals would have the same building footprint, they differ in uses.

The first scenario is for three towers with a gaming facility and hotel as well as commercial and residential buildings. The second scenario would be a mix of commercial and residential development in up to five towers. Both options would also include the creation of a new open space on this block that sits near the 34th Street Hudson Yards 7 train stop. Next, we'll learn about a mixed use building proposal for 2510 Coney Island Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Within walking distance to the Neck Road Q train station and to Mellett Playground, this project contains 60 homes over 15 of which would be income restricted or affordable would also include ground floor retail.

Staying in Brooklyn, we'll head to Crown Heights South in Brooklyn to learn about a proposed mixed use development at 7399 Empire Boulevard. This 13 story building would include around two sixty homes of which nearly 80 would be income restricted affordable as well as retail on the first two floors. Tenants would live only a few blocks from resources like Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the BQ And S Subway Station. The commission will next hear details of a project by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development at ten ninety three-ten ninety five Jerome Avenue in Highbridge in the Bronx. This 100% income restricted affordable building includes 60 homes with set asides for low income seniors and formerly homeless individuals and families.

Also before us today is the special permit renewal and site plan modification for the Hebrew Home for the aged in Riverdale in the Bronx. First approved in 2018 as the city's first continuing care retirement community, this project would contain over seven fifty skilled nursing facility beds as well as nearly 400 apartments for older adults. So with that by way of introduction, let's get started. Madam Secretary, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon and welcome to the City Planning Commission review session for Monday, 11/04/2024. The time is 01:08PM, and a quorum is present. The first item on our agenda is a certification of a special permit, zoning tax amendment, and a modification to a previously approved restricted declaration in Manhattan Community District 4. Our presenter is Abby Ryder.

All right, Welcome.

Good afternoon, commissioners. This is a private application by WRY Tenant LLC, a partnership a partnership between the related companies and Wynn Resorts. There are several actions included in this application. The first is a zoning text amendment to expand the applicability of the special permit to allow for additional waivers.

Abby, can you move the microphone up a

little bit

closer yet speak just a little louder if you don't mind?

Sure. How about now? This is a good okay. There are several actions included in this application. The first is a zoning text amendment to expand the applicability of the special permit to allow for additional waivers.

The second is a special permit to waive various use bulk and urban design requirements to facilitate a wholesale redesign of the development site. The third is a city map amendment to modify the grade of West 33rd Street between 11th And 12th Avenues. And the fourth is a modification of a previously approved restrictive declaration for the development site. The development site is a superblock on Block 6 76, Lots 1 And 5, which totals over 570,000 square feet or roughly the size of three normal city blocks. The development site forms the western half of the John D.

Camerer Westside rail yard bounded by 12th Avenue or Westside Highway to the West, 11th Avenue to the East, West 33rd Street to the North, and West 30th Street to the South. West 33rd Street between 11th And 12th Avenues is also included as part of the project area. The lot is located in the Hudson Yards neighborhood of Community District 4. In this presentation, I'll talk about some of the background for this project, followed by an overview of some relevant existing regulations for the Western Millyard site. Then I'll walk through the actions that the applicant is requesting, followed by the project proposal.

Then I'll briefly touch on the environmental review for this project before wrapping up.

I'm gonna walk through a bit of

site context and background for Western Rail Yards. In this image, we have a view of the development site, which currently an open rail yet a rail open cut rail yard facing west from the sidewalk along the west side of 11th Avenue. Moving south, we have a view of the development site facing northwest from West 30th Street. Behind the construction barrier, you can clearly see the elevated high line across the southern perimeter of the development site. Moving west, here we have a view of the development site facing northeast from the intersection of 12th Avenue and West 30th Street.

In the foreground, you again have the High Line, and in the background, you can see the high density context of the surrounding area. And moving north, we now have a view of the sidewalk of West 33rd Street facing from 12th Avenue, and the development site is to the right with a high blank wall. The structure overhead is the High Line. As a bit of context, the Western Mailyard site was redeveloped in 1986 for LIRR use as a train yard with a capacity of 366 train cars on 36 tracks as well as other facilities. In 2005, the special Hudson Yards District was established to facilitate the redevelopment of the Far West Side as a high density mixed use neighborhood, but with the Western Railroad Yard site not originally included due to the plan to locate a stadium there, which eventually fell through.

In 2007, the MTA issued an RFP for the site, and the related companies were selected as the developer. In 2009, the Western Mailyard site was rezoned from M23 to C64 and was added to the special Hudson Yards District as Subdistrict F, which you can see highlighted in red on the map. As part of the special district, this area has the highest commercial densities of anywhere in the city, up to 33 FAR with bonuses. Notable developments in the area include East the Eastern include to the East the Eastern Rail Yard and Manhattan West, and Javits Center is to the North. Open space includes Bell Absurd Park to the East and the Hudson River Park to the West.

And, of course, we have the High Line. In 2023, the state announced the gaming facility license process for three downstate casino licenses. Earlier this year, the citywide gaming facility text amendment was approved, allowing gaming facilities with a gaming with a state gaming license in the zoning resolution for the first time. Related and when began pursuing a gaming license for the Western Rail Yard site in 2023. Gaming applications will be submitted in the middle of next year, and any other local zoning approvals necessary to enable a development are required as part of the state gaming facility application.

The Western Railyard site is one of four potential gaming facility applications in New York City that require other ULURP actions. The 2009 rezoning of the Western Mailyard from a low density manufacturing district to a high density commercial district was the result of a multistakeholder planning process involving various city and state agencies, civic groups and other organizations. Guidelines established by the process to steer the development of the Western Mailyard site included several urban design principles, including a development of containing a mix of uses, buildings organized around at least five acres of open space, an active and pedestrian friendly streetscape, and connecting the site to both the High Line and views of the Hudson River. Subdistrict F of the special Hudson Yards District allowed a maximum of 10 FAR overall with a maximum FAR for residential and commercial uses limited to eight FAR and community facility uses limited to two FAR. In its consideration of the application, the Commission found that the Western Mailyard was an appropriate location for a flexible mix of residential, commercial and community facility uses at a range of densities.

The image on the left of your screen, you can see an illustrative massing of the approved zoning with eight buildings, seven of which are shown as primarily residential. While the regulations established in 2009 allowed up to eight FAR for commercial uses, the plans at the time contemplated primarily residential development. The illustrative site plan on the right shows the six sites where the buildings could be located. You can see how the open space network that starts with Bella Absod Park to the North And Eastern Rail Yard to the East is continued on the Western Rail Yard site as a more expansive green space counterpoint to the neighboring Eastern Rail Yard site. Note that the plan for the Western Rail Yard was developed before most of Hudson Yards began to take shape.

Since the rezoning, the eastern rail yard site has been built out. Lessons learned from that project with respect to engineering challenges, shifting market conditions, and the opportunity presented by the state gaming license have prompted the applicant to seek an update to the original plan. These host of factors for an updated development site have prompted what the image you see on the left. Notably, now is more understood about the mechanical infrastructure site constraints, like ventilation and fire suppression requirements for the LIRR tracks below. With the 2023 announcement of the new downstate gaming facilities license process, the applicant decided to pursue a gaming license on the Western Malloyard site.

The 2024 proposed project maintains the same overall density 10 FAR with a different contemplated mix of uses now weighted more heavily towards commercial. On the left, you have an updated illustrative massing with one of the two development scenarios, which is the gaming facility scenario of the proposed project. The number of sites has decreased from six to three, and you can see the three larger you can see three larger buildings. The yellow is primarily residential. The yellow or the blue is an office tower with community facilities included including a public school and a day care in the podium.

And on the north is a large podium with a gaming facility and resort and tower. The illustrative site plan on the right shows a larger, more cohesive space. The proposed project respects key planning principles from the 2009 rezoning, like a mix of uses, buildings organized around at least five acres of open space, an active and pedestrian friendly streetscape, and connecting the site to both the High Line and views of the Hudson River. As I just mentioned, the proposed project has two different scenarios, a gaming facility scenario and an alternative mixed use scenario. The applicant's intent is to develop the gaming facility, and the alternative scenario is a Plan B should they not be awarded the gaming license.

As you can see, both site plans have identical footprints with a large site the north side of the block and two smaller sites on the southern side of the block. The casino and resort building on the gaming facility scenario is subject to the state gaming commission's approval. Should the applicant be awarded a license by the state, the gaming facility building would be automatically considered conforming and complying with zoning's use and bulk regulations. In that instance, nothing in the red box would be subject to the commission's approval. If the applicant does not succeed in securing a gaming facility license, the alternative scenario would be developed and the approval sought today would control for the entire site.

So essentially, what the Commission is considering with this application is the alternative scenario. Now I'm going to go over at a high level some of the zoning for Subdistrict F that was approved in 2009. Here you can see the 2009 approved zoning site plan. The plan includes six parcels, each with minimum and maximum dimensions within which buildings can be located, though the buildings would not necessarily take up the entire site area. The site plan also dictates the site's relationship to the High Line and the surrounding streets.

The current zoning also regulates a number area and dimensions of several publicly accessible areas, including passive open spaces, street connectors and pedestrian pathways. In 2009, the commission noted the open space was to create a 5.4 acre open space network that would be a major attraction in the Hudson Yards area, integrating with Highline and extensive landscaping, seating, planting, and other public amenities in the open space. Between the two building sites on the northern edge, two in the middle and two on the southern edge, the open spaces, plaza, private seats, and alley are defined. While there are large lawns included in the plan, you'll see that two towers and two private streets in the center of the site plan interrupt the central open space. There were a host of other bespoke design requirements written into the zoning resolution for the Western Rail Yard site, including street wall requirements, like minimum and maximum base height, percentage of frontage that must be occupied by a street wall, and street wall recesses and setbacks.

Ground floor requirements for buildings facing the planned open spaces such as mandated retail locations and minimum glazing requirements are meant to ensure a lively and active pedestrian experience across the development site. The public access area design requirements regulate landscape seating amenities and hours of operation among other requirements. Other design regulations included tower controls to help shape the towers, including maximum floor plate size, maximum floor plate dimensions, and tower articulation. Additionally, the large variation in the topography of the development site or additionally, with the large variation of the topography in the development site, the current zoning uses multiple site data to measure building heights. Since we've already walked through the existing regulations, I'm going to walk through the requested actions before talking about the proposed project.

There are several land use actions associated with this project. The first is a zoning text amendment to ZR 9,358 to expand the list of regulations that can be modified or waived. The second is a special permit pursuant to ZR 9,358 to modify a host of use, bulk, and urban design controls. The third is a city map amendment to change the elevation from of West 33rd Street between 11th And 12th Avenue. And the fourth is a legal document to modify the previously approved restrictive declaration.

The zoning text amendment poses to modify ZR nine thousand three and fifty eight, which is an existing special permit that allows for the modification of various height and setback regulations such as street wall height. The applicant proposes to add a text amendment to the special permit to allow for the modification or waiver of additional sections of the zoning resolution in subdistrict f only. The first is 9,310 use regulations, which regulates the retail and lobby ground floor and glazing requirements. The next proposed addition is ninety three seventy, which regulates the public access requirements for certain sites, including subject some subdistrict f. This includes the location of open space areas, private streets and plazas, as well as general design requirements and criteria, and the site and landscape plans for public access areas.

Finally, the applicant proposes to add a waiver to ZR 13,242, which regulates the maximum width of curb cuts. The applicant seeks a special permit to pursuant to ZR nine thousand three and fifty eight to waive or modify the following ZR sections. Because the proposed project is a wholesale redesign of the 2,009 approved plan, it would be difficult and take a long time to describe every single regulation that the applicant is seeking to change. The difference between the 2,009 plan and the 2024 proposed project is really an apples and oranges comparison. Because of the major differences, there are numerous controls that relate to the building locations in bulk, streetscape and open space that the applicant proposes to address via the special permit.

In general, the applicant is seeking a greater degree of flexibility than what the existing zoning prescribes to develop the proposed project. Design controls incorporated into the special permit would regulate future development on the site to ensure that the flexibility adheres to the spirit of the Hudson Yard zoning, contributes to a cohesive site plan, encourages attractive building forms and creates an attractive pedestrian experience. At a high level, the applicant is requesting waivers to 93.1 use regulations to update ground floor requirements, modifications to ZR 93.56 for height and setback regulations and related street wall and streetscape rules modifications to ZR ninety three seventy five through ninety three seventy eight, which are requirements for public access areas with updated design regulations to be incorporated into the amended restrictive declaration. Other regulations to be modified include using a single site datum to measure the heights of buildings across the site rather than multiple baselines and allowing an increased maximum width of curb cuts to accommodate a fire truck turnaround. Here we have a side by side comparison of the existing site plan for Subdistrict F and the proposed site plan included in the special permit.

On the left, can see the existing plan with the six parcels in darker gray. On the right, you can see the proposed plan with a total of only three parcels. As mentioned earlier, the sites shown are not depicting the final building footprints, but rather where but rather the maximum dimensions and location for each building on the development site. Notably, you can see that the middle two sites have been eliminated from the site plan. And at the northern edge where the 2009 plan contemplated two smaller sites, the proposed site plan shows a single large site. The 2009 plan was approved before all engineering constraints related to

the

LIRR infrastructure were fully understood. Based on the applicant's understanding of the infrastructure needs, especially the ventilation requirements that must be located above the tracks, the applicant is now proposing a single large podium in both development scenarios to accommodate that infrastructure. Given the programmatic challenges that are driving the size of the podium, department staff have worked with the applicant team to integrate design elements and architectural moves to reduce the literal size and visually minimize the scale of the podium from the perspective of the pedestrian. The illustrative image on this slide shows a view facing east from 12th Avenue looking at sites at the SITC podium. You can see the southwest corner of the podium has been notched out, creating additional open space that transitions to the elevation of the high line.

This also provides visual relief from the size of the podium in addition to the required articulation. The notch out of

the

southwest corner of the podium is included in the site plan for both the gaming facility scenario and the alternative scenario, and the recesses and articulation along the length of the facade are required elements. In this image, you can see the interconnected infrastructure for the Long Island Railroad and other back of house areas in bright blue. The large ventilation shaft is roughly the middle of the development site and as well as smaller shafts and other infrastructure are located throughout the podium. Under normal circumstances, again, this infrastructure would be below ground, but because of the tracks it must be incorporated above ground. Now let's look at the 2,009 approved public access area plan and the proposed PAA plan.

On the left you see that in addition to the three different open space areas, there are two private streets and two buildings in the mid block area. In contrast, the proposed open space plan on the right is more contiguous and creates more usable open space that's uninterrupted by streets and pathways. This is in contrast to the Eastern Rail Yard, which is generally more fragmented and interrupted by hardscape. The open space requirements that exist in the zoning resolution today include regulations like minimum dimensions, requirements for lawn area and playground, and design criteria for things like the amount of seating and tree plantings. Regulations also include provisions for permanent structures and amenities.

The 2,009 approved zoning lays out the approval framework that's required for the public open space. Prior to obtaining building permits, the chair of the CPC must certify that the final design and landscape and phasing plans for the public open space comply with the applicable requirements. Given the complete redesign of the open space, including the elimination of the private streets, was a more straightforward approach from the department's perspective to waive the open space requirements in the zoning resolution via the special permit and relocate the open space design requirements and chair certification framework to the restrictive declaration. The proposed design requirements would largely meet or exceed the current regulations but reflect an updated vision of the open space. To facilitate the proposed project, bulk and urban design requirements and controls are modified via the special permit.

Again, this is a wholesale redesign of the development site, and there are too many discrete waivers to go through each on a site by site basis. At a high level, these updates include height regulations, new ground floor requirements, minimum retail requirements, lobby allowances and transparency requirements. There are updates to the street wall regulations, including minimum and maximum base heights, percentage of frontage that must be occupied by a street wall, street wall recesses, street and setbacks among other treatments for blank walls and mechanical infrastructure requirements. Updates to the tower controls include new maximum floor plate size and dimension requirements. Again, it will take too long to explain every single waiver, but we do want to provide a couple of examples to give you a sense of the type and scale of changes that are being proposed.

So let's walk through an example comparing one of the regulations looking at the site in the southeast corner of the 2009 approved zoning, which is site six, compared to the 2024 proposal, which is site B. In the 2009 plan, the regulations allow for a maximum total floor plate of 25,000 square feet and allow for up to two towers. The maximum east west length is 160 feet, and the maximum north south length is 110 feet. In the 2024 proposal, the maximum floor plate is 47 over 47,000 square feet, and one tower is permitted. The maximum east west length is 280 feet, and maximum north south length is one seventy feet.

These proposed floor plate regulations in the special permit reflects the updated proposal for the site in the Southeast corner while still providing comparable controls on the development to the to the the 2009 plan. As another example of how the regulations are changing, let's look at how street wall recesses are handled. In the 2009 approved zoning, 20% of street walls on sites one and two are required to be recessed. And the maximum percentage of the street wall that can be recessed is 30%. In the proposed site in the proposed special permit for site C, which you can see in the drawing on the right, it can initially look concerning that it appears that the entire podium is waiving street wall recess and articulation regulations, which is what the red hatch on the drawing indicates.

However, it is not the case that the applicant is being given carte blanche to completely disregard articulation requirements. A closer look will show you that the required street wall recesses are now controlled via urban design controlled notes located on the special permit drying itself, which you can see on the right and are very detailed. So in essence, we're swapping one set of prescriptive regulations for another set of prescriptive regulations and locating it in a different place. And this is a consistent theme across all proposed waivers. There will this will ensure that a high quality architectural design and pedestrian experience would still be provided for in the proposed project.

And here you can see an illustrative rendering showing how the proposed street wall recess requirements would be expressed in the on the future SITC podium. There are several findings that the application must meet in order to be approved. These include that the modifications will result in a better distribution of bulk and will not adversely impact access to light and air. Two, if there are requested waivers to open space requirements, those waivers will result in better site planning. Three, that the modifications are consistent with the goal of the special district to provide flexibility of architectural design and encourage more attractive building forms.

Four, the modifications will enhance the streetscape and be compatible with surrounding development. And five, with respect to the waiver of maximum curb cut width specifically, the request is necessary to accommodate a fire truck. The next action is a related city map amendment to change the grade of West 33rd Street between 11th And 12th Avenues. The grade of West 33rd Street will be adjusted to roughly match the elevation of 11th Avenue and align with the Ground Floor of the proposed project. As you can see in this photo of West 33rd Street facing west, a grade change would enhance the pedestrian experience on the south and north sides of West 33rd Street by avoiding the existing condition, which is a long blank barrier at the street level.

This condition is a result of the trains, the tops of which come just below street level. So in order to provide sufficient distance between the top of the future deck over, called the plenum, the ground floor of the proposed development street needs to be raised. As you can see in the applicant's illustrative rendering, the grade change of West 33rd Street would result in an upper and lower portion of the street. The upper level would be constructed entirely upon soil fill, and this current street width would be maintained. The soil fill would expand or would span the length of approximately 715 feet measured from the western side of 11th Avenue.

A cul de sac turnaround would be located on the western end of the elevated portion of the street. The southern portion of the cul de sac turnaround would be located within the property line of the development site and subject to a public access easement governed by the amended restrictive declaration. The lower level of West 33rd Street would remain at the current elevation of the West Side Highway and extend for a length of 85 feet before hitting a retaining wall of the upper level of West 33rd Street. It would be possible for vehicles to turn from the West Side Highway, drive along this lower level, and access the marshalling yard on the block to the block to the north of the the development site. This is important for maintaining vehicular access as well as vehicular access for LIRR operations on the development site.

Finally, in this illustrative rendering, you can see a public staircase and elevator on the south of West 33rd Street, which would provide ADA compliant connection from the lower portion of West 33rd Street to the upper portion. Separately, the applicant will be pursuing a application for a revocable consent from the Department of Transportation to locate an elevator and staircase here. And here we have an illustrative rendering of the elevated West 33rd Street that allows for pedestrian and vehicular access to the Ground Floor of the Site C Building. The final action the applicant is seeking is a legal document action to amend and restate the existing restrictive declaration. The current restrictive declaration continue or contains commitments from the points of agreement with the city and the applicant from 2000 from the 2009 rezoning and includes vindication measures related to hazardous materials, air quality and noise attenuation and historic resources identified in the 2009 FEIS.

Major updates to the restrictive declaration include incorporating the public access area design requirements and share approval process as described earlier. There will also be a public access easement for the West 33rd Street

Loop that we just discussed.

And any new mitigations identified in the 2024 FEIS would also be included. There would be no change to the affordable housing requirements for the site, the commitment to offer a seven fifty seat public school at the development site, which is subject to SCA approval, a local cultural institution, a day care, and contributions to an open space fund. Turning to the proposed project. On the left is a site plan indicating the three sites proposed, and on the right is an illustrative massing of the alternative scenario, which would allow up to five towers, up to two residential and three commercial. The applicant is proposing site a to be a primarily residential building totaling approximately 1,100,000 square feet.

The building would contain approximately 1,500 units, including three twenty four affordable units required in the restrictive declaration. The building at site a would have a maximum height of eleven eighty feet or approximately 80 stories. On-site b, the applicant is proposing a primarily commercial building totaling just over 2,000,000 square feet. The vast majority of the commercial use would be office space with some retail. The community facility uses outlined in the restrictive declaration would also be included in this building.

Up to two twenty five accessory parking spaces would be provided as a right for sites A and B in an enclosed garage. In the alternative scenario, site C is subject to this commission's approval. The applicant proposes up to three buildings with abutting bases totaling approximately 2,500,000 square feet. The Western building would be residential, totaling approximately 250,000 square feet and include approximately 309 dwelling units. The applicant is currently contemplating a 700 key hotel for the Middle tower, which would be subject to a future hotel special permit, though those future plans may change.

Finally, the building on the East Side of Site C is proposed to be a commercial building totaling 1,400,000 square feet. The applicant is proposing a maximum height of the residential and potential hotel buildings of up to eight thirty five square feet and eleven ninety four feet for the commercial building on the East Side. Site C would include up to 450 parking spaces as of right for accessory residential and commercial uses. And the proposed project for the gaming facility scenario, which is the applicant's preferred scenario and subject to a separate gaming facility license, is a gaming and resort building totaling approximately 2,500,000 square feet. The podium would include casino gaming uses as well as a ballroom, conference space, food and beverage, retail, and LIRR infrastructure.

The tower would contain approximately 1,700 hotel rooms and ancillary uses. The tower height would be under 1,200 feet or approximately 80 stories. Finally, the proposed project would involve a major redesign of the open space at the development site, which totals over 5.63 acres including the High Line. The cohesive design includes interconnected lawns, landscaped areas, walking paths, seating areas, plazas, and a dog run. In addition to landscape seating, lighting, and paving, the open area would include other amenities such as bicycle parking and public restrooms.

On this slide, can see a view of view facing from the Hudson River looking at the central open space. As a reminder, while the commission is approving the PAA design guidelines, which will live in the restrictive declaration, the final construction landscape plans will be subject to a future chair certification, which is the same process currently written into the zoning resolution. And as a note on the environmental review, an EIS was conducted with DCP acting on behalf of the CPC as a lead agency. The Notice of Completion for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement was issued on 11/01/2024. The DEIS identifies significant adverse impacts related to shadows, transportation, air quality and construction.

Possible mitigation measures are identified in the DEIS and will be explored further between the DEIS and final EIS. In summary, this application is meant to facilitate a redesign of the Western Rail Yards in Hudson Yards with a proposed development including two scenarios with the same site plan, one with a gaming facility with three towers and an alternative mixed use scenario with up to five towers. This concludes my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions.

Great. Thank you very much. Before I turn to questions from my colleagues, let me just ask a few clarifying points myself. So, have two scenarios here. We have a gaming facility scenario and we have a nongaming facility scenario.

In the gaming facility scenario, the North Building, which you hopefully put an X through, a red X through in the presentation, is the one that would be subject to evaluation by the state's independent process, correct? Correct. In that scenario, is there any further action needed for the other two buildings that remain on the site remain previously approved on the site for us to consider? Or is there something more that we need to do in the gaming facility scenario?

In the gaming facility scenario, the rest of the site would still be subject to the commission's approval. The site plan or this entire application would include everything outside of the site c podium in the gaming facility scenario. So in either case, it's regulating open space requirements, site a and site b. That's before the commission today. But maybe I'm misunderstanding your

Well, no. I think you understood it correctly. I'm just not sure I understood your answer. So I just wanna make sure that I do. So the site Subdistrict F was approved in 2009. It had a variety of different buildings, six of them, a couple of them in the North, a couple of them in the middle, a couple of in the South. For the purpose of gaming facility application, the the big building with the podium is evaluated by the state. Is the entire site evaluated by the state, or is just that one building evaluated by the state?

Not to my knowledge, but I'm not an expert on the gaming facility license process.

You wanna respond? Go ahead. Andy's coming up. That's my understanding as well is that the gaming facility commission is only their purview is only related to the the building itself, which contains the resort and casino. But I'm not a 100 on that. They could be looking at the entire proposal for the zoning lot, but we I understand. Can for all the purposes of what this commission is evaluating, we are is there anything for us to evaluate in the gaming facility scenario? Is there anything proposed to be changed from what previously had been approved? Hi, Susan. Welcome. Hi. You know I've gotten us into plenty of trouble with I have of what

the gaming facility will be looking at. We expect that they will be looking at only the gaming facility part of this and not the other structures.

Okay. So does that mean that these two buildings on the southern end of the site are the would be the ones that were previously approved back in 2009. Is there any action that the commission is being asked to take here relative to the rest of the site in the gaming facility scenario is really what I'm asking.

And the answer to that is yes. Yes.

Okay. Can you tell us what that is? You're being asked to consider the full extent of the site outside of the red box. Okay. So amending all of the things amending Including the open space and size of buildings and things like that that had previously been approved in 2009 to accommodate a new design of the entire site. Is that correct? Exactly. Okay. All right. Now, the the plan as it was approved in 2009 for subdistrict f, is that physically not viable today?

Or is it viable but not desired by the applicant? Because there's been some discussion about engineering constraints, ventilation and things like that. But there was a site plan that was approved in 2009, and it's different from what is being proposed today. And my question is, is it physically unbuildable or is it just that the applicant has changed their priorities as to what they would like to see here? I would say probably both.

The I think just when this proposal was approved in the late aughts, the rest of the Hudson Yards was not built out. The Eastern Rail Yards had not really been decked over yet. And the developers at the time didn't sort of fully appreciate the constraints of, the fire suppression systems, all of the other infrastructure related to the Long Island Railroad that would need to be part of this sort of larger, plenum and podium, which is why there's, you know, one contiguous podium today versus two smaller sites. I think it also the update to the plan also reflects, obviously, the applicant's desire to now pursue this gaming facility license. And I think due to sort of the programmatic exigencies of that type of use resort, large casino gaming floors, etcetera, they're seeking a larger singular podium.

So I certainly understand that in the gaming facility scenario, but now I'm going to focus our attention for the purpose of this conversation with the nongaming facility scenario where what has been proposed is a podium, which seems at least looks to me to be exactly the same dimensions as the casino scenario. Why why is that? Why is the podium so significant in the nongaming scenario? And did the applicant consider breaking up that bulk, leaving that mid block connection that existed back in the 2009 plan? Why we proposed have podium which is functionally the same in either scenario?

I think we probably have to defer a comprehensive answer to that to to the applicant. I think, you know, over the past year plus, we've been working really closely, really well with the applicant to come up with some design moves, some other treatments to break up that massing, and, you know, potentially push them to break it up into potentially multiple smaller sites instead of a single podium. But, you know, ultimately, this is where we arrived, despite staff sort of pushing for sort of more smaller sites rather than a single large podium. I think, you know, the applicant will will have to address that at the public hearing. Okay.

The density isn't the same the same in in the proposed nongaming facility scenario versus the 2009 approved plan, correct? Yes. The allowed FARs are exactly the same. Okay. And also the applicant of course will have to address some of those actually all of those findings that Abby laid out about better distribution of bulk and adverse effect on light and air and a more attractive building form and enhancing streetscape all things, which I think are worth asking about a podium of that size.

Okay. My last question and then I'm going to go maybe I'll have the last two questions and then I'm going go to Commissioner Benjamin. At the end of 33rd Street, there is a cul de sac and there was an image of it. Yes, that's the one, Which it looks to me, if I understand it correctly, there's a place for pedestrians to walk on the north side and on the south side of this West 33rd Street. Is that correct?

Correct. But if you're walking on the South Side of West 33rd Street, you really only have one safe choice there, which is it looks like it's to go into the building. Otherwise, you have to cross over two lanes of road. Is that am I understanding it correctly? So it's not clearly depicted in this image, but there actually would be a sorry.

This laser pointer is not working. But there actually would be a pedestrian path, a sidewalk along the southern edge. It would be interrupted by curb cuts, but there would be a pedestrian path there to get to the Northwest open space. So I see you have to just hug the building though. You go underneath that overhang, hug the building, and come out onto the highline. Is that right? Right. Okay. And and the last question for me was on the one of the three proposed buildings in the non gaming scenario was a hotel possible. Possible hotel.

But no special permit for hotel is being sought here now. Why not? I think just, you know, given the state licensing process that it would be premature to seek spend the time and and resources to seek a separate hotel special permit when that's not necessarily the applicant's ultimate intent at the end of the day. So what is the applicant's ultimate intent at the end of the day then? We have three buildings on a base podium, which is the same size as the gaming facility.

One of the three buildings is a special permit for which no I'm sorry, is a hotel for which no special permit is being sought. What is the applicant's intent for that site? In the alternative scenario? I think the the FARs allow for a mix of different uses. So that potential hotel wouldn't necessarily need to be a hotel. It could be residential. It could be commercial. It could be community facility. I think plans for the alternative scenario, like Abby mentioned, are a little bit more amorphous because it's not necessarily the applicant's plan a. Okay.

Well, I will note we're being asked to to evaluate this as if it were the only plan. We recognize that it may not be the preferred choice for the applicant, but we do have to get it straight here to make sure we understand what we're dealing with. All right. Let me go off to Commissioner Benjamin and then Vice Chair Nichols.

Thank you so much for the presentation. It was very helpful. I am confused about some things though, and I have basically five questions. I can tell you all five first or I can

do Okay. It The by the

first one is that the way I read the documents in my recollection is that in the original proposal, the 2007, we were getting 431 affordable units. And that in this alternate c scenario, we're getting 324. Is that correct?

No. That's that's not correct. There were as part of the points of agreement in the 2009 rezoning, the applicant was obliged to provide 324, affordable units, and they're gonna satisfy that 324 requirement.

What happened to the original 2007, I think, 431

units? Oh, sorry. The Eastern Rail Yards also had to satisfy an affordable housing requirements. And my understanding is that those were already built.

Okay. So and I'm assuming as an a to that question, that is why if the developer doesn't get the gaming license and does alternative c and does the additional 300 units of housing, there will be no affordable housing as part of that. Is that

No. In in either scenario, the developer is obligated to provide those additional 324 affordable units. Right?

If if we get this alternate c and if the developer builds C 3, which is residential, that will be a total market rate development. Is that correct?

Potentially. Right now, the applicant is proposing to include those three twenty four units in Site A, which is the

Right. I

understand that. Right. But we get that irrespective of whether Site C is a gaming facility or whether Site C is never developed.

Correct.

So I'm asking about the alternative Site C 3. Is there any additional affordable housing as part of that? And in Site C 1, if they decide to do some part of it residential, will there be additional affordable housing requirements?

There would not be an affordable housing requirement. There is an inclusionary housing incentive that would allow them to obtain additional FAR if they were to include affordable housing. And is separate and apart from the Right.

But is that analyzed somewhere that we can what what this would look like if they utilize the inclusionary housing bonus?

No. I don't believe it's analyzed anywhere.

Could we ask them to? We can definitely

ask for that.

Yeah. Okay.

Number two is I'm not sure I understand the interaction of the Sightsee Gaming and the LIRR. I understand the LIRR is down through the middle of what would have been thirty first, thirty second, and part of an edge of thirty third. But I don't really understand how they relate to each other. For instance, if the ventilation is is the ventilation proposed to be passive or active ventilation from the Long Island Railroad?

So just directing the commission's attention. So if you look at the dark black bounding box along the southern portion

Mhmm.

That's essentially terra firma. Right. Everything else north of that is basically

The rail.

The rail cut. And I believe, you know, the infrastructure is extensive. I believe it's, you know, it's active ventilation. It's fans. It's blowers. It's suppression systems.

Right. And that leads to my question about how pleasant will it be to sit in the open space while that ventilation is going on, if it's active ventilation with blowers and other things, is that gonna make that space at all really usable?

I think that's definitely something the applicant will have to speak to.

Okay. And possibly, when they're considering that in the open space, it does not appear that any of it is active open space?

There are some and this isn't a good diagram because

Well, that's 2009. So But,

yes, there is some active open space. There's a playground, I believe. There's a space dedicated to pickleball or tennis courts, things like that.

Okay. Because it wasn't called out, and I didn't see on the plans an active designation.

Right.

I think

a lot about the lawns and the seating.

Right. I think, you know, these plans are Yes. Illustrative, But there is a requirement that they include or my my understanding is that there is a requirement that they include some sort of active space like a playground or or something like that.

Because there was some discussion about the school using some outdoor space, but I don't see where that happens. So if if maybe we could get a more dimensioned open space graphic. I'm not saying they have to do a full plan. But if we could get a graphic that showed open versus lawn versus what may be the school's open space, I think that would be helpful to many of us.

Right. We can definitely ask the applicant to provide that.

And also in the interaction of the gaming and the Long Island Railroad, I'd like to understand more of the transparency requirements above and in the plenum?

I don't think in terms of the exact comparison between the 2,009 and what's being proposed right now, I don't have that in front of me, but we can get you more details. That

would that would help my analysis. And and And one issue in the environmental review is there's a discussion of monitoring being considered mitigation for the shadow impacts. Monitoring their occurrence, is that something that it's not something I've seen before. It's just that monitoring and then changing perhaps the vegetation or flora as a result of the what the monitoring showed. Is that a new kind of mitigation that we're or is it not mitigation?

It's just

something else? Hello. Stephanie Fluent, Director of Environmental. Great question. Monitoring is something that we have used before, so it's not a first time shown here. And it is something that allows mitigation to be kind of tailored over time. So it's not just, you know, make this intervention and hope it works, but it's more has more longevity to make sure that any any interventions to make sure that plants in the open space can thrive are are successful. So it's not just replace them with shade tolerant plants and hope it works out, but, you know, have have those points in time to check-in and make sure the the environment is still thriving.

And who would monitor?

Usually, it's a relationship between the Parks Department and the applicant. But we're still working out those details, it should be more finalized by the FEIS.

Okay. Thank you. And, Les, I'm curious about the West 33rd Street. It looks like it's on two levels, that there's the level that meets 12th Avenue, and then there's the level with the turnaround that goes into the building. If I'm a car, that little yellow car that's driving up 12th Avenue and that wants to go down 33rd Street.

Would not be possible.

Okay. So the only p the only entities that can go down 33rd Street are people who wanna go into this building, building alternative c, or into the the other alternative c, c one, C 2, C 3. So I assume that the street would not be exactly the same if the casino is not built. If there were three buildings there instead of one.

It would be essentially the same. The I think the location of the the curb cuts would vary a little bit just given ingress and egress differences between the buildings, but the street itself would be largely the same.

So we're largely closing 33rd Street. Is that correct?

It would be a dead end. It also provide access to, you know, whatever future development arises at the marshaling yards in the future. Whereas today, you know, it's it's basically not feasible just because of these blank wall conditions on either side. Accessing those lots is essentially impossible because, you know, you have the trains on one side, you have this drop off on the other. And so the the street sort of needs to be elevated in order to have a ground floor that's accessible

to the pedestrian. Will 12th Avenue look like?

From which?

12th Avenue from 33rd. I mean, that looks like just some kind of wall, a blank wall so that you don't see the trains. Is that all we're gonna get?

So there that's basically what the condition is

today. Correct. It looks like that's what it's gonna be in the future?

I I think I'll have the applicant speak to that, what might be able to happen underneath the highline. As far as, you know, access, there is an access point to LIR infrastructure just beyond the highline underneath sort of where that elevator is that LIR still needs access to. And similarly, on the northern side, there is a curb cut, for the state, that they would also have access to the marshaling yards from there.

Right. But if I didn't wanna go to the marshaling yards, if I wanted to go if I was walking up 12th Avenue and I wanted to go to Building A Or B, how would I get there?

There would be a a staircase and an elevator. So as a pedestrian, not a car, as a pedestrian, you could walk right under the high line, go up the staircase or use the elevator, and you'd be right at the level of the high line in the open space and then be able to walk down 33rd Street. So pedestrian access is significantly enhanced and preserved. It's just vehicular access that would not be maintained.

And I'll say, Mark, but I I would suggest that somebody look at design requirements along 12th Avenue. I mean, we've said we don't like the wall basically that's on 33rd Street now, but it seems like we're okay with the wall being on 12th Avenue. So maybe somebody can take a look at that. Thank you.

Thanks, commissioner. Vice chair Knuckles. So just in in response to that, the MTA is constructing a a flood wall, which I believe will necessitate sort of that blank wall condition there underneath the high line. But I can have the applicant speak more to that.

Or the MTA. I mean, there are designs that would be compatible with a flood wall that would not look so scary.

K. Thank thank you. Mister Vice Chairman?

Yeah. I just wanted to pick up on the question of commissioner Benjamin. I just wanna make sure I understand. So pedestrian vehicles really cannot or should not utilize that service entrance. Right? Because you can't go from 12th Avenue through to 11th Avenue. Right?

That's Right. Private vehicles would not be able to get to 11th Avenue.

Right. So when you go in that service entrance, how do how does one come out?

Either the vehicle would need to turn around Yeah. Within the site itself.

Yeah.

And come back out or exit a different a different route.

What would be the different route?

For which site? For the development site or for the marshaling yard? I think the right Chairman is asking if you go in off of 12th Avenue and you want to escape after you've entered, is your you mentioned you can turn around and come back out on 12th Avenue, but is there another exit point from for to make an escape here if you're entering from 12th Avenue, or is that your only way in and out? I know the marshaling yard has another curb cut on the north side of the block. But for the south side of the block, for the development site, I'm not quite sure we can have the applicant speak to that.

Okay. And I can't access my file for some reason. So what takes place in the what what is marshaled in the yard?

Currently, not much. I believe the state Empire State Development Corporation is the owner of that site. They have plans to release an RFP in the near future. But currently, it's it's staging for construction, different things like that.

Gotcha. Okay. Could we go back to the the screen with the with the alternative scenarios?

The the site plan or the massing?

The massing. Yeah. So in the non gaming facility scenario, what's contemplated is, what, several million square feet of commercial office space. Correct?

The allowable FARs are flexible and allows them to build, you know, commercial or residential or a mix of the two.

Right. But

as as contemplated, it would be it would be weighted more heavily towards commercial.

So if market realities dictate otherwise and they decide that, you know, they wanna do housing rather than commercial, they have to come back before us?

Not necessarily as long as they keep their, you know, floor plates within the designated sizes, as long as they keep that residential FAR to below eight, then, you know, a more residential heavy program could be possible without another discretionary action.

And you mentioned earlier that in in the residential scenario, it would be, what, inclusionary?

An inclusionary incentive? There's an inclusionary incentive. Yes.

And that's the only one. Right?

Yes. There's not a an MIH requirement. Right? There's no MIH requirement. Thank you, mister vice chairman. Commissioner Goodrich?

Hi. Okay. So I

have a few questions regarding the high line. Do we have a sense of how much more foot traffic this project will bring to the highline?

I think that was analyzed.

I I don't don't know.

We I'm not sure if that was analyzed in the EIS, so we can get you more information.

Okay.

One of the criticisms was that the gaming the casinos would hurt local businesses. And I can see how that could happen. I think sometimes when people hear this, they're like, well, there'll be more foot traffic. People will go to local businesses. But in fact, when it's something like a mall or a big thing like a casino, they're just in that area. Do we have any analysis about whether that's true, whether it could impact local businesses?

So my understanding is that the DIS did not find any adverse impact related to either direct or indirect displacement of businesses. But, you know, we can get more information for you.

K. And and, you know, it might not necessarily be that the businesses go out of business, but it could just be a slow over time. They get less customers because more people are in this very large new thing. My other question, have, as I think everyone here knows, I have a very strong love of green spaces in New York City because we don't have much of it. And so the little bit that we have is precious. So about the High Line again. The shadow impacts, do we have a sense of how severe they would be on the nearby High Line?

That definitely was analyzed. I don't know if the adverse impacts, that were identified relate to the Highline itself or relate to other open space, but, we can get you more information. Sorry.

So the Highline is the open space resource that had shadows impacts. We are will be now that the DEIS is published, we can have more open conversations with friends of the Highline and other stakeholders in order to design mitigations that will be most effective. I can check on what the impacts exactly were, whether it was to enjoyability of the resource or whether it was vegetation. I think it was a little bit of both, which means that shadows could affect the ability of people walking on the High Line to enjoy the resource as well as the vegetation to thrive.

So just if I'm understanding correctly, both the actual plants in the High Line could be impacted. And then when people are actually walking on the High Line, then the cast shadows will obviously well, it'll cap the shadow, so it won't be as bright. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay. So this is just something that's this is a project that's been in the works for a really long time, and these are issues that the community has brought up. I mean, they're not new. I'm I'm not bringing up anything new. And so I'm just wondering if the developer has I mean, they'll come and they'll speak to it. But I'm wondering if the developer has addressed any of this at all.

To to the Highline specifically The or

the small businesses, the shadow impact. You know, this is part of the building a taller and more dense building than the community thought. This is their concern. And it's obviously a you know, they have time to modify it. So I'm wondering what is the developer's perspective.

Yeah. I think we'll

What is their perspective? What have they done differently?

I think we'll have to let the developer speak to that.

Okay. What tax breaks or government benefits is this developer getting from this project?

I'll have to let the applicant speak to that.

Well well, shouldn't we know?

What would I don't personally know. No.

Okay. Alright. I mean so let me just clarify the question just for the not not for the developer for Wednesday. Some of the units will be affordable. I wanna know if there are any task breaks that they're getting and what other This is a concern.

Mhmm. Is there a message? Mhmm.

I I was just wanting to clarify. This is for certification, so there's no hearing on Wednesday. Right. There's no hearing on Wednesday.

Hearing.

Right.

This is just for cert it's a hearing, respectively, but not Wednesday.

Later down the road, there'll be a hearing that comes back from a public review. We

can definitely get you more information in the meantime so you don't have to wait until the public hearing for them to respond.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. My last I will ask one more question. Can you please clarify for me the 2009 agreement, how many at that time of total housing units were expected? And then how many I know there's not three twenty four like you might I know there's much more because it will get to the affordability bit. But how many under the original thought? And then how many today? I couldn't get into the file, so I wanna clarify here.

Right. Good question. So, you know, like we said earlier, the allowable FARs are are not changing. So the residential FAR and what they're allowed to build on the site is not changing. What is changing is what they are intending to build and what is being analyzed in the EIS.

And so the 2,009 EIS analyzed a few different scenarios, a maximum residential scenario, that looked at around 5,400 sorry. 5,700, residential units maximum. Thousand '9? That was 2009. K.

The maximum commercial scenario under that scenario, it was a little under 2,000 residential units. So a a huge, you know, delta between the maximum commercial scenario and the maximum residential scenario.

And that's because that space will be used for the casino that under the original plan was not part of. Right?

No. Sorry. The those numbers that I just quoted, those were both from the 2009 FEIS. So it it analyzed two different two different scenarios, one with more residential, one with more commercial. And that's because the range of allowable FARs is very flexible. It's eight FAR for residential, eight FAR for commercial. So that's why they're both analyzed.

Okay. So 5,700 under the don't know if anyone else has questions, so I'll sum up. But 5,700 under the original one, and then how many today?

Today, the with action scenario has about 1,500 and change.

Do we have any idea about the affordability, the income, eligibility for the affordability one, like the AMI that they're anticipating?

I don't have that information on hand. We can get that to you.

Okay. That's all my questions.

Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Sourio?

Thank you, chair. Thanks so much for addressing our questions, and and thanks so much for the presentation materials. They were really interesting, very thorough, especially the DEIS. Thank you very much. That was that was really interesting.

I wanted to build on a couple of my colleagues' questions, particularly as they relate to the findings of the DEIS. And so I'm interested in the interaction between the adverse significant air quality impacts, particularly as commissioner Benjamin was pointing out on-site c with the LIRR ventilation with what seems to be a really intense wind impact from the towers, which which, by the way, I appreciate so much. I know that this was more of an appendix, not at the core of the DIS, but it was it was really useful. So given the fact that there's a potential impact on air quality, I want to understand from your analysis how much of that will be exacerbated by what seems to be a resulting increase in uncomfortable areas as noted by the appendix on wind impact? So that's the first question.

And I'm also very much interested in sort of like the reduction in open space, but let's start with air quality first and the impacts on the wind on particulate matter in the in and around the public spaces.

Yes. So the LARR ventilation impact on the sensitive receptors and the open spaces being we anticipate being further analyzed between the DEIS and the FEIS, and working with the applicant to identify control measures that may ameliorate that emission source so that it's at a much lower concentration than would be. So I think we will that's a great point about how the wind analysis works in tandem with that. And so we'll make sure that's incorporated into the refinements of that analysis to make sure that we're identifying how the widespreadness of that issue.

Thank you for that. I look forward to looking into this just because the results of the wind impact seem intense particularly. Thank you. That's great. The second question, I mean, understand that the there's no direct reduction in open space, but there's a significant indirect reduction.

And

I understand that you point very clearly that this is way above the city standard. But the city standard is calculating for folks that live there, and we're talking about a major sort of like destination as commissioner Goodwood was just pointing out. I want to understand how to factor in and mitigate, and I think it's a great opportunity that we have to some extent sort of the restrictive declaration to enhance our analysis and our discussion here in terms of the open space requirements. Just because it sounds to me that this is a reduction in passive open space that again will be impacted by the air quality and by the wind impact, and we're sort of like reducing those spaces. So I'm wondering how much room do you see in the final EIS for us to try to understand what type of mitigation impacts could actually address that?

Okay. Thank you. We'll look further into that. I would point out there's qualitative and context that goes into the open space impact determination as well. And so I think one of the one of the arguments in that regard is that the open space is much more, you know, one cohesive space now with the new design rather than, like, the several fragmented spaces. And so I think there's also, you know, a lot one large open space that can have different different areas and serve different functions, also brings a lot more usefulness to the users because they're not, you know, this one small space, this one small space, but more a large area where where multiple users' needs can be satisfied. No. Thank you.

That makes sense, and I can see that clearly. Well, while you're on the platform. But underneath the platform,

then that there's a a little bit of

a different story. So so so that that would that's just kinda like another, I think, angle to it, which which leads to my other question about flooding. So the obviously, the platform is a big mitigation strategy, you know, straight off. But I'm wondering what's going to be the mitigations or like plan underneath. And for the passive holding spaces that are underneath the platform, there's mentions of a potential deployable flood prevention system, but it's not clear how that's going to operate.

I'm also very interested in the fact that I think the school is going to have an access and some of the community facilities will have the access there. So what would be what's how much room do we have to actually use the strict restrictive declaration to govern how that will be how that will how that will play out?

Yeah. I I don't have more details on the flood mitigation strategies. We can touch base with our climate and sustainability planning team and the applicant to understand more about that.

Okay. Great. As as you do that, it would be also important, I think, to factor in the extent of storm water inundation on 12th Avenue. I didn't see that as analyze much to, like, emphasis on it as you were to coastal sea level rise and so forth as well as storm surge. I think that that particular site requires the three. The other question is more something that I would love to discuss as when this comes back, which is it's clear that again because of the air quality impacts all of the buildings will be fully electrified with exception of the emergency generators. Will that will be diesel powered. Is that correct?

I'm not Okay. A 100% sure, but we can get you a Yeah.

I would like to know that because that's this is I think that we need to figure out how to control potential additional cumulative impacts in air quality just because Site C seems to be well, it's already identified as a significant adverse impact. But but also more more to the opportunities that may be created here, what is the plan for on-site renewables and whether there'll be battery storage, will, will that be? Any additional details on that? And then just finally, I didn't see anything on the actual whether the restrictive declaration already is incorporating any type of community input, community participatory processes for the design of the open spaces when the time comes. Is there anything that maybe I missed, or do you see opportunities to include some of that in there?

I mean, you you mentioned incorporating the Friends of the High Line to commissioner Goodrich's question, but I'm wondering in terms of the actual design of the open spaces, not just the mitigation strategies.

Right. We can get you more details, but I believe there is a sort of community advisory type commission that advises on sort of programmatic and design details for the open space. Can get you more detail.

Thank you. Thank you. No. I appreciate that. And just just generally, do you think that some of these concerns, questions could be addressed through the restrictive declaration?

And do you see space for that? I do think that's probably where they would need to live. Yes. Okay. Cool. Thanks. Thank you, commissioner. Go to commissioner Mann.

Great.

Thank you, chair. So just to take one step back, it seems like the the rationale for the project, as I understand it, is that the ventilation requirements below grade render the 2009 development economically infeasible. And therefore, they're looking for a series of modifications to that 2009 plan. Is that roughly the the story here? I I don't think that's

I think that's one variable among many.

Okay. Let's let's talk about the among many then because I'm I'm a little bit fuzzy there. I understand the casino licensing opportunity has grabbed a lot of people's attention, including this developer. But in terms of the the option, it's not the casino scenario. I'm not totally clear on the rationale for it, frankly, other than the vent facilities and the venting requirements somehow require a redoing of the site plan. And again, I'm just not clear enough other than one diagram that was shown how those two things interact with one another. So if there's something else beyond the the venting, I guess it'd be helpful to understand what it is that's driving the rethinking of the site plan.

Right. And I think, you know, the the applicant has in their application materials spoken to sort of the land use rationale they believe justifies this change, and they'll speak to it more at the public hearing, obviously. I think from staff's perspective, you know, we appreciate the the change to the open space in particular. I think the more fragmented existing site plan, is probably not ideal if we were to design that today. We would probably design a more open, cohesive, usable open space. And I think from staff's perspective, that's something that we really liked about this proposal.

Right. So I and I think I think that's certainly an an open discussion point. I I think one of the concerns about a development like this is that it ends up being a cul de sac for very specific users and not a particularly public place. And so I think, you know, there's a question of whether the streets are useful for bringing people through and not creating a sort of isolated somewhat, you know, cul de sac like condition, which is I think challenging no matter what the site plan is. But I guess just backing to the rationale, which I understood to be really looking through the application that there were challenges with decking over this portion of the site that necessitated a rethinking of the site plan.

And I guess it would be helpful if, I don't know, EDC or any other agency took a look at the real estate questions here at play to see if there's actually an economic hardship or challenge associated with decking over and doing a version of the 2009 plan, particularly as it relates to the use framework, and, and, obviously, the city's need for housing and the rationale for a commercial scenario. So I don't if that's possible for the department to actually, consult with, EDC given the scale of this development and that the central question seem to be economic ones, whether it's possible to validate the applicant's premises. But I think that would be valuable, at least to me. Because otherwise, it's gonna be very hard to make a determination about site plan without understanding if it's actually economically viable or not to do the alternative. So it's a request.

I'll let you all consider it. On the chair's point about hotel, this one was really baffling to me. The applicant says they're building a hotel in the application. So I am a little confused too why the special permit isn't being requested and why the department didn't wanna ensure the consistency with what the applicant's saying and the application,

they're seeking. I think it's just a matter of timing and resources for both the applicant and the department. I think we're sort of looking at this on a step by step basis. So, ultimately, if they do obtain the casino license, there would be no need for the special hotel permit from the commission. And so that's why we thought it would not it would be premature to seek it as part of this application.

I think if you go back to, I think, slide 34, the next slide, It says it says hotel tower.

Right. I think these are images from the DEIS. So the DEIS, as part of the analysis, looked at a hotel use, just as a contingency because they needed to analyze that if they were to have that in the future.

Okay. So the DEIS analyzed the use that's not allowed on the site? Correct. Again, I'm not I'm not really sure the the the sort of consistency here of the approach. Again, I don't I don't wanna dwell on it too much, but I'm just a little confused by it.

Yeah. So my understanding is that the gaming facility license is for gaming facilities. So that can be the host and the group of uses that make up a gaming facility, including casino floor, hotel, conference rooms, and other amenities. So in the gaming facility scenario terminology here the hotel would be considered compliant with zoning because it would be part of the gaming facility. And so because the as as Andy said, the alternative scenario is that, it's an alternative, that may require follow-up actions in order to facilitate the full scope of the the uses there.

Okay. Yeah. I'm not I'm

not sure I understand, again, the the rationale for it, but but I'll let that question sit. And it's, you know, it's not unusual, especially for large complex projects for applicants to seek follow-up actions later in the process if they don't know exactly what the ultimate development will look like.

Okay. Again, I I don't wanna dwell on this point too much. It seems like this is a pretty exhaustive list of waivers they're seeking, so I'm a little confused why hotel has been left out. But again, we can we can let that one sit, I'll ask the applicant at the public hearing. Just finally, on the on the podium for the nongaming facility scenario, which takes up a lot of the ground square footage. Can you help me understand? That's that's almost a Manhattan city block of a building, if I'm looking at the dimensions correctly, you know, close to 700 feet east west.

715 to

be exact. And an avenue block in Manhattan is something 800 feet, give or take. So can you help me understand what is the point of a podium that would connect a residential hotel and office tower at that scale in the alternative?

Yeah. I think that's something that staff, you know, quite honestly, struggled with a little bit as we worked with the applicant. So I think the applicant will definitely be prepared to respond to that question when they come. You know, I'll just note, however, that even though Site C is itself larger than either Site 1 or site 2, the aggregate street wall length in the proposed site plan is actually less than the allowable aggregate street wall width in the 2009 approved site

plan. Sure. But but that breaks up the mass into a couple buildings, and this is one building that, I think, depending on the city block, might be larger than the city block. If you look at that three twenty dimension, which is more than a North South, you know, Manhattan block dimension. So, again, I'm not I'm not, frankly, really clear on why that makes sense or what the thinking is there, especially when that scenario seems pretty unfully thought through if they're not even seeking a hotel special permit to build it? Yeah.

I think it's, you know, it's driven, again, primarily by infrastructure, but also sort of programmatic and other support areas that are necessary to sort of have within those spaces that under normal circumstances could be below grade, but in this instance, can't be below grade. So that has to be in a podium. Okay. Yeah. Again, I'm I'm well, I

think, probably discuss this more in the hearing. I'm I'm not clear why the ventilation needs to be needs to generate a podium that's 300 feet north south and 700 feet east west. It seems like there's a big leap between one to the other. And so it'd be helpful to understand that better as we go. But again, just want to reinforce this kind of question about, if the underlying point here is the economic, the economics of building a platform and ventilating that platform necessitate a rethinking of the site plan, it'd be really helpful to understand whether it's actually independently verifiable as a question.

Thank you. Thank you. And whether it's the economics or even the physical limitation, whatever it is, I think it is worth our exploring because we're being asked to deviate from a plan that was already very carefully designed back in 2009. Okay. With that, we're going to let Commissioner Mann be the final word on this for the moment and we will proceed here. This item is now certified. Thank you very much to both of you. And let's move on to our next item for the day.

The second item on our agenda is a certification of a zoning map and zoning text amendment in Brooklyn Community District 15. Our presenter is Lucia Kupuchio.

Welcome. Hello. Good afternoon.

Hey. Good afternoon, chair Gurodnik and commissioner. So this is a private application from two thousand five hundred ten CIA LLC for a zoning map amendment from an R 4 in a C 81 District to an R 7 D C 24 District within the Special Ocean Parkway district and a zoning tax amendment to Appendix F to facilitate the development of a new 11 story mixed use building, including over 61,500 square feet of residential space or 60 dwelling units, 16 of which will be permanently income restricted, and over 6,400 square feet of ground floor commercial space. This project is located at 2510 Coney Island Avenue, which is between Avenue V and Grave's End Neck Road in Sheepshead Bay in Community District 15 in Southern Brooklyn. This is an aerial view looking north at Coney Island Avenue in the project area.

The project area consists of four lots and two partial lots fronting on Coney Island Avenue and Avenue V. Island Avenue is a major North South mixed use and commercial corridor that runs roughly five miles from Prospect Park to Coney Island. It's a 100 foot wide street with a variety of uses, including two to six story residential apartment buildings, mixed use residential and commercial buildings and retail stores. The surrounding area is also characterized by a mix of one and two family homes and multifamily apartment buildings, primarily to the east and west of the project site. The block of the proposed development features multifamily homes directly south of the project area on Coney Island Avenue as well as a unique six story mid block infill apartment that is directly west of the southern portion of the project area.

There are numerous public transportation options for bus and subway service located near the project area. The B-sixty eight bus operates north south along Coney Island Avenue between Coney Island and Windsor Terrace and runs directly in front of

the project site as well as

the B-three bus, which operates East West along Avenue U between Bensonhurst and Bergen Beach, two blocks to the north of the project site. The Neck Road MTA subway station with queue line service that runs from Coney Island to the Upper East Side Of Manhattan is located five blocks to the east of the project area. The project area is a 35,700 square foot rectangular area that is generally bounded by East 8th Street to the West, Avenue V to the North, Coney Island Avenue to the East, and Graves And Neck Road to the South. The project area consists of six lots, including two irregularly shaped partial lots. Project area is developed entirely today with commercial uses.

The development site consists of one lot that's outlined here in yellow that's improved within auto sales and repair shop. Although not part of the project area, you can also better see those two infill apartment buildings. This is a land use map. You can see the majority of Colonial Island Avenue in this area is lined with commercial uses, with some public institutions directly to the southeast of the project area, including a library and a private high school. The majority of the surrounding area is residential.

The project area is located within R4 and C8-one districts, which have remained unchanged since 1961. The project is located in the last block of the eastern border of the Special Ocean Parkway District, but is not impacted by the bulk or FAR regulations of the district. The zoning districts mapped within the surrounding area include R4 and R5 residential districts and CA1 commercial districts. R-four and R-five are medium density residential districts that have restrictive FAR and while CA-eighty 1 districts do not allow residential uses. This project is located in the five hundred year but it's planned in the coastal zone boundary and will follow policies consistent with the New York City Waterfront revitalization plan.

The proposed development would also follow other mitigation measures, including locating commercial space on the Ground Floor and elevating proposed residential units above expected flood levels. Looking Southwest, you can see the corner lot and northern edge of the project area at the intersection of Coney Island Avenue and Avenue V, which is currently improved with a two story bank building and parking lot. You can also see the significant width and underbuilt context of both avenues. This view continues to move southwest along Coney Island Avenue, where you can see the other two storey commercial building within the project area. Finally, you can see the southern edge of the project area, which includes three one storey commercial buildings, including the applicant owned development site in yellow.

The development site has a total lot area of 11,000 square feet and hasn't been improved with a one story auto sales and repair shop since 2012. The proposed actions would facilitate the development of an 11 story mixed use building sorry, commercial and residential building totaling 61,000 square feet. The proposed development would include 55,000 square feet of residential space, which would be about 60 dwelling units, of which 16 would be permanently income restricted. The development would also have 6,400 square feet of commercial space on the Ground Floor. Parking would be provided in a seller level.

The applicant is currently proposing 24 accessory parking spaces, which is the minimum amount currently required by zoning. To facilitate this project, the applicant seeks two proposed actions, a zoning map amendment and a zoning text amendment to Appendix F. The zoning map amendment seeks to change the existing R4 and CA1 districts along Coney Island Avenue to an R7 D C24 district. An R7 D district is a contextual district that allows a maximum FAR of 5.6 with MIH and FAR of 4.2 for community facility uses and two for commercial uses with the c two four overlay. The applicant also proposes a zoning text amendment to appendix f to map MIH coterminants with the project area creating permanently income restricted housing via MIH options one and two.

This application requires a racial equity report on housing and opportunity. The proposed development would provide new housing units in a neighborhood that has experienced little housing production. The area median household income for the project area is around $65,726 which is slightly lower than the median income for Brooklyn and New York City. The applicant proposes to provide MIH units that meet 40%, 60%, and 80% AMI income band limits. In figure one, we can see that the population of the Sheepshead Bay, Garretson Beach, and Homecrest MTA is predominantly white and Asian with the percentage of white residents at 63%, which exceeds both the borough at 35% and the city at 31%.

The Asian population at 20 is higher than borough and citywide percentages. Figure two shows the percent change in race and ethnicity from 2010 to 2020. The largest growth we've seen in the Asian population, which has experienced a growth of 41% compared to an increase of 43% borough wide and 34% city wide. The Black non Hispanic and Hispanic populations have also seen population increases in comparison with borough and citywide percentages. White population has decreased 7% in this NTA compared to an increase of 8% borough wide and no change citywide.

Figure 14 shows the percent change in housing supply and population from 2010 to 2023. During this time, housing units in this area increased by 3%, while the population increased by 6%, showing the number of housing units production has not kept pace with population growth. In summary, this is a private application for a zoning map amendment from an R 4 And C 81 district within the Special Ocean Parkway to an R7 D C24 district and a zoning text amendment to Appendix F to facilitate the development of a new 11 story mixed use building, including approximately 60 units, including 16 of which will be income restricted. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer questions.

Mr. Sherula?

Thank you. So here's a question. I'm just looking at the rendering here, and then I'm going to what's to the

I guess I'll start with this.

The area being rezoned, we'd have to go right. Is just the development site, or does it go beyond the development site? Either way.

It goes beyond both directions. So it's two two lots. This view is looking west. So from this view K. To yeah. So two lots to the south here are two one story commercial buildings. Then you have the development site here, which is at 11,000 square foot auto repair shop. And then there's two more lots to the west. If I was not to the North. Sorry. Trying to get

my directions. And there's

two more lots. Yeah. So it's

a total of six lots, two of which

are partial because you can see it's, like, very irregularly shaped.

Yes.

Yeah. There's one lot that's very deep, so it's not picking up the entire lot there. And then you'll see that that white that's not a part of the project area, that's a parking lot. That's part of those infill apartment buildings. So that's not in the project area, but it's a but the

project area. Thank you. So if you

just go to slide 11 for a second, and I realize that these renderings may be illustrative more than

Yes. They are illustrative. Yeah. Else.

So the the the reason I asked the question just is because if looking at the rendering, the lot what what might be considered lot line windows, if if the sites and I'm assuming they're the same on both sides. But, again, this is all just sort of rendering. But I I'm just it made me think about the possibility of the adjoining property owners taking advantage of the rezoning themselves and developing a similar building in height on their site, what that means in terms of the design of this building with the lot line windows, which obviously make it more attractive and and obviously serve a purpose. But I just it was just an immediate thought when I saw the sort

of Right. Illustration.

Understood. I I do have this is a little difficult to see, but this is kind of the the illustrative plans. Again, illustrative, so this is not what the commission is looking at here. But, yeah, you can see that they have a a 10 foot driveway proposed, and then it's an eight foot open space on the other side. So, yeah, your point's well taken. I think, obviously, they are complying with all the zoning here. There's also the 30 foot rear yard requirement that they're complying with. But understood. Was any other?

No. No. No.

It was just really just a reflection on what I was looking at. And and also just to confirm the rezoning area versus the site specific. But thank you.

Sure. Thank you. Commissioner, vice chair Knuckles.

Sure. What what exactly is that?

Again, this is a lustre I can have I can certainly have the applicant speak to the design. Yeah. I think it's the due to the you know, they only have the one development site. So I think that's why they're going up higher, obviously. But we can certainly have them speak to the decisions that they've made about the design at the public hearing when they come

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, commissioner. Let me go to commissioner Dweck on Zoom.

Thank you. My concern is with the, height. The area is currently in r four. What's the rationale from going from an r four to an r 70 when on development sites farther north on Coney Island Avenue, the maximum that I can recall seeing, of recent is is an r seven a. And those are in districts that are much more that are denser. So can you speak to the rationale or the applicant's thinking behind the r 70 designation? Especially, you could see from the picture right in front of you that that does definitely does not look contextual in comparison to the neighborhood.

Sure. I can certainly speak to the applicant's rationale, and then they can also speak to this. You know, Coney Island Avenue and Avenue V are both wide streets. So Coney Island Avenue is a 100 feet wide. It's near numerous forms of public transit.

You have the f and the q trains both five blocks away along with bus service. So I think the department also agrees that this is Coney Island Avenue is is a a street that can handle additional density. I would also say that R 4, obviously, has a restrictive FAR of 0.75 right now, which makes building multifamily homes basically impossible in many, instances, including this one due to the requirements of the yard and setback. And then lastly, CA one districts also, as you know, do not allow residential. So I think it's an appropriate increase in density, but we can certainly have them speak to, the rationale further also along with the height.

Yeah. I mean, as of recent, if you can maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that we have approved R 7 A along Coney Island Avenue as an increase in density, to develop that corridor. So is it do you know of any recent applications that came in above R 7 A that we've approved?

There's one not approved yet, but there's obviously the public review process of 2185 Coyle Street, which is gonna be it's also my project. So that'll be back here in two weeks for a public hearing. That's looking at R 7 A and R 7 X. Yeah. But also R 7 X.

And then I believe 3033 Avenue V, which is the next door, was an R 7 D, but I'd have to confirm. But, yeah, we have seen, obviously, increases in density along. I can speak just from my projects. We've had R7A. R7D was also thought about for this due to prior restrictions where they would require ground floor commercial, which is no longer after zoning for economic opportunity. But that was also part of the rationale here because the department agreed that we would like to see commercial on the Ground Floor here due to the nature of Coney Island Avenue.

Alright. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Ossario?

Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the presentation. I had a couple of questions. I mean, maybe starting with a question that builds off, Commissioner Duque's question. You know, I I I remember that when when we when these proposals have come through the CPC, we discussed maybe the opportunity to start developing somewhat of a corridor analysis, kind of like a framework to put these ideas in context and maybe understand a little bit how do we control for some of the unintended, you know, impacts here.

You know, I'm not as concerned as with the height, but I wonder, you know, whether there should be a conversation about massing and urban design opportunities here to contextualize Right. This building? I mean, I know this is an illustrative rendering, but it's a little scary.

Is Alex here? Yeah. I think Alex can speak to kind of our Coney Island Avenue framework. Yeah.

I appreciate the question. And this also goes to commissioner Dweck's question. I think Coney Island Avenue as a entire corridor does offer some opportunities for additional housing capacity. And as a way to also think about preservation of some of the interior blocks. So we we are taking a look at at some opportunities along the corridor. I think maybe we can come back with a list of private applications, but as well as some thoughts that maybe we have around land use planning for corridor. So happy to happy to come back and talk to that.

Thank you. Thank you both. I I agree on what you said. I agree that this is an area that can manage this amount of density. But I think that it also requires a little bit of comprehensive planning to make sure that we're doing this in a consistent and cohesive way.

Appreciate that. The other questions are so thank you for your reference to the vulnerability of the site two flooding. I I would encourage you to consider some of the projections because, you know, you mentioned the the existing conditions, but the projections are gonna be far worse here. And, this is a corridor that requires serious thinking to make sure that the infrastructure is there or is developed to accommodate that amount of density. The in addition to coastal flooding, this is an area where we need to we need to look at stormwater very seriously. Avenue V and Coney Island Avenue are are severely compromised. And so I'm wondering if you can tell us now or if you can come back with what is the plan, what is the the city's plan to upgrade the infrastructure here.

I would say, you know, that's outside the scope of this application, but we can certainly come back. The applicants can speak to, you know, what they're planning to do with the building to I know that they're gonna you know, they're planning on it's not subject to appendix g of, the building code, but they are planning to have floodgates in the cellar. But I I certainly understand your point. I I would just say, like, for the city's infrastructure, think that's outside the scope of this particular application.

Thank you for for considering that. I mean, I I would love to maybe have a little bit of a longer conversation about that because I understand what your response. But at the same time, if we're considering increasing density significantly in the corridor, we need to make sure that there's a plan to mitigate the impact of flooding. And I know that, you know, probably there's already a plan to comply with the building code, etcetera, but but I'm thinking more about the corridor, like the future of the corridor in that regard. So Thank you. Something that to that I would love to discuss in more detail later. The other thing is, can you remind me the the list of three bedrooms? I didn't I think I I I I don't have it, and I maybe I missed it.

I I don't believe they're proposing three bedrooms

Okay. Here,

But I I can

Okay. So maybe this is a point where perhaps we can bring that up bring it up with the applicant because just

Oh, actually, sorry. I forgot I have the ARIA ID. I can pull it

right equity report. That sounds

I'm sorry.

Important. Yeah.

Yeah. So no. It it's just one and two bedrooms.

Okay. Cool. So I I think that that that maybe, like, validates the need for be like a conversation with them when they come here, but if you can maybe expedite that, According to the racial equity report, we need a better mix.

I

can certainly bring back the concerns about the bedroom mix and have them ready to address that when they're back.

And then just finally, is there a plan so far to relocate the businesses, the specialty auto businesses?

Not that I'm aware of, but I can also pose that question.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Meaning that I'm not sure if they've had those conversations. I just want to clarify.

Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. This item is certified. And let's move on to the next.

The third item on our agenda is a certification of a zoning map and zoning text amendment in Brooklyn Community District 9. Our presenter is Jordan Fratt.

He's not my recusal.

Jordan? Welcome. Okay. We have a recusal from commissioner Rampershed.

Yes. Commissioner Dirk.

Sorry. Was that commissioner Dweck? Sorry. Let's I triple checked. Sorry. Sorry. Commissioner Dweck is is recused. Sorry.

Sure.

Mhmm. Right.

Alright. Good afternoon, chair Gorodnik and commissioners. Today, I'm going to present the July rezoning for the commission's review and certification. This is a private application by Empire Boulevard Holdings LLC for a zoning map amendment from C82 and R6 C13 to C44D and a zoning text amendment to map an MIH area order to facilitate a 13 storey mixed use development with two sixty one dwelling units, 78 of which would be income restricted and approximately 62,235 square feet of commercial use. The project area is located in the Southwestern portion of the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn Community District 9 and situated on the North Side of Empire Boulevard between McKeever Place and Bedford Avenue.

Here's an aerial view of the project area looking northwest. The project area is located in Southwestern Crown Heights, immediately north of Empire Boulevard, with the prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood beginning just on the south side of that street. Grand Army Plaza is approximately one mile northwest as the crow flies, and Atlantic Terminal is approximately 1.75 miles northwest. The project area, excuse me, sits near the intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Washington Avenue, Franklin Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Empire Boulevard, a major junction in South Central Brooklyn. Empire Boulevard is a 100 foot wide street that connects Central Brooklyn with East Flatbush, Brownsville and neighborhoods farther east.

It's also a designated local truck route by DOT. Three blocks to the west, the Prospect Park Subway Station provides access to the B and Q trains and Franklin Avenue shuttle. The B41, B43, B48 and B49 bus lines are also all accessible within a couple of blocks as well as multiple city bike docks. The commission may recall that in recent years several private land use applications have been approved in the surrounding area. In 2018, portions of the blocks bounded by Franklin Avenue to the East, Washington Avenue to the West, President Street to the North and Montgomery Street to the South were rezoned from R6A and R8A to R8X with a partial C24 overlay to facilitate two buildings with a total of five eighteen residential units.

After a series of legal challenges, the rezoning was upheld in 2022 and the buildings are currently under construction. Immediately south of this area, the 962 Franklin Avenue application proposed to rezone the block bounded by Montgomery Street, Sullivan Place, Washington Avenue, and Franklin Avenue from R 6 A to R 8 A C 24 to facilitate a 14 storey mixed use building with four seventy five dwelling units. This application was approved by the CPC on 09/25/2024, with a modification from R8AC24 to R7DC24 and a height limiting incline of 15 degrees, and it's currently under review by the City Council. Three blocks east of the project area, a nine storey, three twenty eight unit mixed use building is being constructed as of right at 975 Nostrand Avenue with an 11,961 square foot bonus and 15 foot height authorization via the FRESH program. A non ULURP authorization to permit a curb cut at this address will also be heard by the commission later today.

Two major subsidized housing projects, Tivoli Towers and the Ebbets Field Houses, are four blocks north of and one block north of the project area, respectively. Here's a bird's eye view of the development site, which is outlined in blue. The project area consists of Block 1306, Block 28 bordered by Sullivan Place to the North, Empire Boulevard to the South, McEver Place to the West, and a line 380 feet west of Bedford Avenue to the East. These streets have widths respectively of 70 feet, 100 feet, 50 feet and 80 feet. The project area is coterminous with the development site.

It has a total area of 38,118 square feet and is owned by the applicant. The area surrounding the project area has a variety of land uses. The building sound along Empire Boulevard hosts a variety of industrial and commercial uses, mostly rising between one and two stories. Establishments along this corridor include a supermarket, self storage facilities and several fast food restaurants with drive thrus. The street features heavy truck traffic, little to no shade and inadequate sidewalks.

To the south, the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood contains mostly one and two family row homes with multifamily elevator buildings and neighborhood serving commercial uses primarily on Flatbush Avenue. North of the project area, the Crown Heights neighborhood contains mostly multifamily, medium density apartment buildings, including a new 12 story building located one block to the west of the project area along the northern side of Sullivan Place between Franklin And Washington Avenues. Many residential areas near the project area more contextually rezoned between 1994 and 2013 for the purpose of preserving neighborhood scale and character while allowing for residential growth along major corridors. In addition, the project area is surrounded by multiple open spaces and community facility uses, including Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, three schools and Jackie Robinson playground. City University of New York's Medgar Evers College campus is located one to two blocks to the north.

The site is currently split by two zoning districts. The southern portion is Zone C82, a low density auto oriented commercial district that prohibits residential land uses and bridges commercial and manufacturing uses. The northern portion of the project area is zoned R6C13, a medium density residential district mapped widely throughout Brooklyn.

Here are some photos of

the site today. This is along the Empire Boulevard frontage looking northeast. You can see the Ebbets Field houses which rise to about 25 stories in the background. This is along the Empire Boulevard frontage looking directly east showing the dilapidated nature of current building and the wideness of Empire Boulevard. This is a photo from McKeever Place, the street bounding the project area to the west.

And finally, this is a photo from Sullivan Place looking west. Jackie Robinson Public School three seventy five is immediately to the right. And just out of frame, also to the right, are the Ebbets Field Houses. The curb cut in the foreground leads to covered parking spaces for the laundromat on-site. Here we see a rendering of the proposed project looking north from Empire Boulevard.

The applicant is proposing a 273,542 square foot building or 7.2 FAR containing both residential and commercial uses. The applicant proposes two sixty one housing units, 78 of which will be income restricted pursuant to MIH Option two and sixty three thousand two hundred and thirty five square feet of commercial floor area, which will be facilitated by the C44D District's allowance of commercial uses on both the 1st And 2nd Floor of the development. The applicant currently plans for the Ground Floor to be mostly occupied by an affordable national full service grocery store plus a small number of local retail establishments to activate the street scheme. The tentative plans for the 2nd Floor involve a national affordable clothing retailer. The proposed development would total 13 stories or 145 feet in height, 190 parking spaces are proposed, 92 for residents and 98 for the commercial facilities.

And the applicant has stated that they will provide these spaces regardless of any future actions taken through City of Yes to eliminate parking minimum minimum parking requirements. Here we have two renderings of the building from other perspectives. The proposed building height is, again, a 145 feet with a base height ranging from 75 to 95 feet. To facilitate the proposed development, the applicant seeks a zoning map amendment and a zoning text amendment to map a mandatory inclusionary housing area. The applicant requests a zoning map amendment from CA two and r six c one three to c four four d.

C44D districts have an R8A residential equivalent. The proposed C44D district would permit multi level commercial uses above grade at a maximum of 3.4 FAR so long as there is no access between residential units and commercial uses located on the same floor. Residential uses are permitted up to a maximum of 7.2 FAR with MIH. They allow a maximum base height of 105 feet and a maximum building height of 145 feet or 14 storeys with MIH. Parking for commercial uses is required one per 1,000 square feet of floor area and is required for 50% of the market rate dwelling units.

No parking is required for income restricted units in the transit zone. Under the changes proposed in City of Yes for Housing opportunity, the R 8 A District would not see any changes in permitted bulk or height. The applicant requests a zoning text amendment to establish an MIH area. The applicant has stated that they will choose option two, which requires 30% of residential floor area to be set aside for households making an average of 80% of area median income. This application requires a racial equity report.

According to the racial equity report, the median household income in Puma 4011, roughly coterminous with Brooklyn Community District 9, is approximately $65,651 which is lower than both Brooklyn and New York City as a whole. Puma 4011 has experienced a 13.7% increase in housing units between 2010 and 2023 compared to a 3% increase in population according to the decennial census between 2010 and 2020. Since 2014, eighteen eighty two income restricted housing units have been produced and ten sixty eight have been preserved in this area. The population living in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights is 25% white non Hispanic, 3% Asian non Hispanic, 10% Hispanic Latino and 55 Black non Hispanic. The percentage of white residents is six percentage points less and the percentage of Black residents is 35 percentage points greater than New York City as a whole.

From 2010 to 2020, the area saw a 3% increase in population. During this time, the white non Hispanic and Asian non Hispanic populations both grew dramatically, but the black population decreased by 20 percentage points. To conclude, this is a private application from Empire Boulevard Holdings LLC for a zoning map amendment from CA2 and R6 C13 to C44D and a zoning text amendment to Appendix F to map MIH options one and two to facilitate the development of a new 13 storey approximately 273,542 square foot mixed use building with two sixty one dwelling units and 63,235 square feet of commercial space on the 1st And 2nd Floors. Thank you. And I'm happy to take questions.

Great. Thank you very much. I'm going to start with Commissioner Benjamin.

A quick question. If we go back to the racial equity report one more. There. The annual mean households in Puma is 65,000.

Yes.

But 80% of AMI is more than that. So we're building affordable apartments for people who can't afford them. You see what I'm saying? So given that discrepancy, are there ways we can address that? Because it seems silly to say people are making 65,000 on average, but we are making apartments that are going to be affordable to people who make 79,000.

Has the department we've seen a couple of things like this, which would lead one to think that the people who will move in will not be the people who are living there. Most even in affordable rent ups, generally, people who are the higher income within the affordability categories score more points and are more likely to get these apartments. And without the 50% local preference that we had down to 20%, how do we kind of reconcile that what we are doing makes sense to house people who live there?

I will you know, I know that

Alec wants to Oh, sorry.

Go ahead. I'm not I I was gonna say, so what we have done as a department is, you know, allowing deep affordability MIH to be mapped as a stand alone option as as part of Citi. Yes. We're housing affordability, which is the sort of thing that people in Community District 8 And 9 have, like, been very receptive to because think, you know, many of the issues that they have are similar to what you just brought up. As far as what this particular applicant wants to do, I'm gonna leave it to them to answer that when they come here for a public hearing.

And and I'll just I'll just add that I I do wanna note that the 65 66,000 median household income is a is a median across the the PUMA. That includes a variety of of different housing types, a lot of seniors, folks that own their home, they're renters. And so I don't you know, it it is a way to to kind of benchmark the affordability levels, but but it is a median. And then comparing that to the housing affordability, which is an average across all units as well. So there would be more affordable units, recognizing that 80% is still a higher average.

But even setting aside the standalone MIH option, there would be a variety in the 40% to 60% AMIs as well. Just wanted to

And I guess what I'm suggesting is maybe I know the department is overworked as it is, but maybe the department needs to take a look, particularly when we're giving someone basically a three point something increase in the FAR as to whether the percentage or level of affordability should be adjusted given the magnitude of the zoning increase in floor area. That's and my second question is just if the applicant wants to change this assume the city of yes is adopted by the council and the applicant wants to come in and change the site plan since we're not approving a site plan. If they wanna eliminate the parking, if they wanna reduce the rear yard from 30 to 20 feet, if they wanna extend the building that far, they can do that all without us. Is that correct?

They can eliminate the residential parking spaces. Right. But 90 I believe it's 98 out of the 190 parking spaces are accessory to the commercial uses. So if So

those have to stay, but the residential parking spaces could go. The rear yard could be shortened. The building could take a different shape by

It could. Yeah. And we asked the applicant in advance why they were planning to pledge to maintain all a 190 parking spaces even if City of Yes passes. And they basically feel that, the residential parking spaces will be seen as an amenity by many residents that they'll that Mhmm. They feel will be attractive to people moving in.

Okay. Thank you. Mhmm.

Thank you. Commissioner, commissioner Marine?

I just have one question that just surfaced based on the conversation that was going on between Commissioner Benjamin.

So the question was what could they

do that on the city of yes? And the answer was yes. But wouldn't they have to come back to this body since there was an application made here first?

I don't think so. No. I think

with the text amendment, once the text of that district changes then the text of that district is changed. So obviously, we're going have a few applications in the midst here between now and when the council votes for which there could be additional opportunities presented if City of Yes passes in its current form or any amended form. So, we're going to have to wait and see what the council does on that. I've got commissioner Astoria and then commissioner Mann.

Thank you, chair. Thanks for the presentation. I

have

really just two questions for now. One is, again, as with the previous application, this is another site where storm water inundation is an issue. So I'm wondering if that has emerged so far or if there's anything that you can share with us in terms of the city's the city's plans to improve the infrastructure there?

I can ask the applicant. Nothing has come up in discussions I've had with them, and it I don't believe surfaced at any point as an issue in the environmental review. But I can double check with the applicant and get back to you.

That's what I mean. That it's it's not in there, but I think we should look into it. Okay. Thank you. The other the other question has to do with the energy efficiency of the building. Could you share a little bit sort of, like, what's the what's the plan and whether or not there are any renewables planned on-site? That's another issue where I would need to speak

to the applicant and get back to you.

Okay. Got it. In the EAS, I found interesting findings regarding a soil contamination. And so specifically, the fact that there's an active active remediation on-site. Can you can you expand a little bit on that? What's what's the status of the remediation right now and and to what extent, you know, is this so so what else needs to happen, basically?

Hold on one second. I'm just writing this down.

It's another question that I will put to the applicant or that you can ask them when they come.

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks. Thanks. But if you can if you can share anything in before then, that'll be great. That way we can Yeah.

Yeah. I I'll reach out to them and try to get some answers for you.

Okay. Great. Great. Thank you

very much. Appreciate it. Absolutely.

Thank you. Commissioner, commissioner Mann.

Great. Thanks, Gerard. I think it's great to see applications come forward in Empire Boulevard. I'm just curious on the rezoning boundaries side of the conversation. If we can just do zoning map that shows it. Yeah. I mean, it's I know it's out of scope and too late, etcetera, etcetera. But guess I'd just ask the department to consider kind of future applications here to think about the rezoning boundaries a little bit more ambitiously. I know the rest of the block is I think there's a self storage facility immediately in addition

to this

that's not being rezoned. Seems like that's a a great development outcome for the City Of New York to see self storage turn into residential. And so I just would ask the department to think about the rezoning boundaries a bit more expansively in certain instances, especially along Empire Boulevard where there've been, I know, many years of discussions about potential corridor wide rezonings. Again, I'm not sure there's much we can do in this application. Understood. Yeah. We'll ask the department to think about that. And I

think that's it for me. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, commissioner. All right. Thanks, Jordan. This item is certified. Thank you.

The fourth item on our agenda is a certification of a UDOT designation, project approval and disposition of city owned property in the Bronx Canadian District 4. Our presenter is Brenna Hemmings.

Hi, Brenna. Welcome.

Hi. Good afternoon, commissioners

and everyone. So my name is Brenna Hemmings, and I will be presenting on 10931095 Jerome Avenue, UDAP.

Okay.

So the project is located in Community District 4 of The Bronx. It is located at 1093 Jerome Avenue and 1095 Jerome Avenue within the Highbridge neighborhood. New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, HPD, is requesting a designation of an urban development action area project, UDAP, and disposition of city owned land. This would facilitate a new 11 story residential development with 61 units, including one for the on-site superintendent. And this map is just to give an approximate location of the proposed project site.

So the development site is highlighted in blue. The area map shows the existing land uses located in the surrounding area as and is in a primarily r seven dash one zoning district. The land uses in the surrounding area include residential and commercial as well as mixed commercial and residential uses. So this is an aerial view. The project site is highlighted in yellow.

The development site currently contains two vacant three story walk up apartment buildings that will be demolished to allow for the new construction of the proposed development. The project site is bounded by Jerome Avenue to the East, West 166th Street to the North, Anderson Avenue to the West, and West 1 65th Street to the South. Okay. So the left photograph is the view south down Jerome Avenue. The existing buildings are highlighted by the yellow dotted box.

The right photograph is the view from across Jerome Avenue with the existing buildings, 1093 through 1095 Jerome Avenue, pictured center frame and highlighted by the yellow dotted box. The proposed development will include one apartment for the superintendent as well as a mix of studio, one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom units serving individuals and families earning up to 80% AMI, as well as formerly homeless individuals and families. So this is the facade elevation from Jerome. I wanted

to show a picture of it.

And in order to facilitate the proposed development, the applicant is seeking a UDAP and disposition of city owned land. So this applicant has prepared a racial equity report on housing opportunity, and I will present some of their findings. The proposed development would provide new housing units in a neighborhood that has experienced more housing production. The area median household income for this project area is around $38,340 which is slightly lower than the median income for The Bronx and New York City. So Figure one shows that the population of Concourse, Highbridge, and Mount Eden is predominantly Latino and black, with over 60% of the population identifying as the former.

This is the higher percentage than The Bronx at 29% and New York City at 20%. And Figure two shows the percent change in race and ethnicity from 2010 to 2020. The white non Hispanic, Asian non Hispanic and Hispanic Latino populations experienced increases in this neighborhood tabulation area at 51%, 207%, respectively, while the percentage of black residents decreased by 7%. This is compared to a 43% increase in the Asian population, a 1% increase in the black population, and a 14% decrease in the white population throughout the borough. So housing production.

Figure 14 shows the percent change in housing supply and population from 2010 to 2023. Between that time period, housing production in this neighborhood tabulation area increased by 15%, while the population increased by 4%, showing that the rate of housing unit production has kept pace with this neighborhood tabulation area's population growth. That concludes my presentation. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Great. Thank you. Commissioner Benjamin.

Sorry. Thank you for the presentation. And I just have the same question. That the median income in these PUMA areas was $39,000

I think? $39,340

And

only the extremely low income those people would all qualify for those extremely low income, generally speaking, apartments. But they would not qualify for the low income or the very low income because their incomes would be too low. So once more, the question is how do we try to match more closely the needs of this community for housing with the housing that we as government are sponsoring and providing.

No, absolutely. That's something I can ask HPD about more.

Yes, I

would appreciate. Yes. Thank you.

They can definitely answer more questions, I'm sure, when they present in front of

the community board and they come for the public hearing.

Great. Thank you, Brenna. Commissioner Osorio?

Thank you. Thank thank you

for the presentation. Sorry. Sorry. And And I was just wondering if there's anything on the energy efficiency of the building that you can share with us. I mean, sort of like, any discussion so far? Yeah.

Not that I'm aware of. I we haven't had those conversations, but I'm happy to ask them and see what they can tell me.

Yeah. I would appreciate that. It's just we we've we've seen similar proposals, and this is a perfect scale for maximizing energy efficiency. And so given the the affordability levels here, that's another, I think, important priority. Thanks.

Of course. Thank you.

Thanks, Commissioner. Okay, Brenda. Thank you very much. This item is certified 1090 Three-ten 95 Jerome Avenue. And we'll move on to the next one.

Great. Thank you.

Have a

good day.

Thank you. You too.

The fifth item on our agenda is a post referral review for a non EULIP authorizations, a modification to a previously approved special permit and renewals in the Bronx Community District 8. Our presenter is Nathan Heffern.

Alright, Nathan. Welcome. Thanks.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

So this is the post referral presentation for Hebrew Home for the Aged, modification of a zoning special permit, and then a renewal of that special permit. So the applicant is Hebrew Home, also known as River Spring Health. The project is located in the Northwest Corner Of The Bronx in Community District 8 at 5701 Dash 5961 Palisade Avenue. The applicant is seeking to first, again, modify and then renew a zoning special permit. In addition, they're also seeking to special natural area district or SNAD authorizations and one SNAD certification.

The project consists of an approximately 32 acre site on a split lot between an R four district referred to by the applicant as the North Campus and an R one Dash 1 district referred to as the South Campus. The entirety of the site is located within the Special Natural Area District. The site is bounded by West 261st Street and the College of Mount Saint Vincent to the North, Palisade Avenue to the East, the Metro North Railroad to the West, and West 254th Street to the South. Other zoning districts in the area include R 1, R 2, and R 4 Districts, and land uses consist mostly of residential and community facility uses with commercial corridor to the East on Riverdale Avenue. The site is largely inaccessible by transit with the closest bus lines, the BX 7 And 10 on Riverdale Avenue.

There's also a Metro North railroad stop approximately one half mile to the south that is difficult to access due to the area's varying topography and intermittent sidewalk network. Hebrew Home, formerly known as Hebrew Home for the Aged, was founded in 1917 to provide housing and services for aging adults. The Hebrew Home acquired their current site on Palisade Avenue in 1948 and expanded to its current footprint by acquiring what would become the South Campus in 2011. The bulk of their services occur on the North Campus in nine buildings ranging in height from one to eight stories. The campus currently includes 753 skilled nursing facility beds, a 104 assisted living units, and 137 nonprofit residences for the elderly.

In September 2018, Huber Home was granted a special permit to facilitate the expansion of their facility to include a continuing care retirement community or CCRC. The proposed CCRC would be the first CCRC approved pursuant to the ZQA zoning regulations and will be licensed under Article 46 of the New York State Public Health Law. It will contain new independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing components, allowing residents to stay in the community as their needs change as they age. Admission to the CCRC will be subject to a life care contract approved and formed by the New York State Department of Health and Insurance. The life care contract will provide that no one would be asked to leave the CCRC because they become financially unable to pay their monthly costs.

The actions approved in 2018 would allow for the development of the CCRC on the R 1 Dash 1 portion of the South Campus. The CCRC is allowed as of right in the R 4 North Campus portion of the site. Due to pandemic related pandemic related delays in 2018, the the 2018 approved special permit lapsed, and the applicant filed for renewal in 2022. However, soon after, the applicant approached DCP to modify that special permit and allow for to allow for the provision of additional amenities for residents and to approve traffic flow in and around the campus. So the actions brought before the commission are as follows, special person zoning special permit, renewal of the special permit, and related special natural area district actions including the following authorizations and certification.

The modifications to the natural features of the site are required to facilitate this project, and the appropriate restoration measures are detailed in their application. So these are the following proposed modifications to the twenty eighteen site plan that the applicant is seeking. They'll walk through each of these proposed modifications. So here's the current site plan along with the twenty eighteen approved site plan and then the proposed modifications. The twenty eighteen approvals allowed for three abutting buildings, including including an 11 story building on the North Campus and three and five story buildings on the South Campus for the CCRC.

The building footprints, number of floors and total number of independent living units of the CCRC, which is three eighty six, remain unchanged from the twenty eighteen approvals. So then we'll zoom in to see what the proposed modifications are on the site plan. First, the reconfigured north entry will move the entry gate 14 feet to the west further into the site, which will allow for better vehicle queuing on-site, in particular with large vehicles. The current configuration results in traffic backups on Palisade Avenue, especially when 53 foot trailers are checking in at the gate. Next is a reconfigured vehicle turnaround at Wing 1 of the CCRC.

This, again, will help with internal circulation of large trucks accessing the site. The applicant is also proposing an additional two feet five two feet five inches of excavation in order to accommodate parking stackers in the parking garage. This will bring the total number of spaces in the previously approved garage from 71 to 162 and a total of 600 spaces on the entire campus. The total required by today's zoning would be 506 spaces. This is an axon facing Northwest showing the proposed modifications to the building's rooftop and facade including balconies, bay windows, relocated cooling towers, a rooftop patio, as well as stairs and passenger elevators with their associated bulkheads for rooftop access.

Another axon facing Southeast, again, showing the additions and changes to the 2018 approved plan. This is an elevation that shows the heights of the additional equipment. The applicant is seeking an additional 11 feet eight inches from the 2018 approved plan to accommodate the elevator bulkheads to provide resident access to the rooftop patio. And this is a rendering of the 11 story CCRC building including the proposed modifications. The project was referred to community board eight on September 10, which discussed at their land use committee on September 11 and held a public hearing at their full board on September 12.

Their vote was favorable with 22 voting in favor, one against, and 11 abstentions. So in conclusion, the applicant is seeking the aforementioned modifications to their 2018 approved special permit and then renewal of that special permit to facilitate the development of this continuing shared retirement community, which would the first of its kind in New York City. So that would result in two votes for this project. They would be first to modify the originally approved special permit and then to renew that special permit. Concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take any questions.

Great. Thank you. So the continuing care retirement community was defined as use in ZQA. Is that correct?

Yes. That's correct.

Okay. And the special permit was approved initially in 2018 to facilitate the expansion that was filed for renewal in 2022. And the changes which enable the thing that we're talking about here are the ones you ran through with us, the reconfiguration of a north entry, better turnaround, some rooftop facade, balconies, bulkheads, things like that. Those are the changes here. Okay.

Well, it really seems like a lot of the the the development could have been done with or without some of those changes. This just makes it more consistent with the applicant's goals. Is that a fair statement? Right. Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Let me see if there are questions from anybody else here. Okay. We're gonna schedule this one for a vote. Thank you very much.

Great. Thanks.

Okay. The sixth item on our agenda is a prehearing review of the zoning map and zoning tax amendments in the Bronx one. Our presenter is Cesar Delgado.

Alright, Cesar. Hello. Hello, sir. Good afternoon, commissioners.

Good afternoon.

This is a prehearing presentation of the 438 Concord Avenue rezoning application. BronxCo LLC is requesting a zoning map amendment and a tax amendment to create a new mandatory inclusionary housing area and zoning District R7 D in the Special Mixed Use District 18. These amendments aim to facilitate the development of one new 10 story building with approximately 87 housing units, of which 24 are intended to be income restricted. The building would also have light industrial and retail spaces and it's located on 438 Concord Avenue in the Modehaven neighborhood, Community District 1 at The Bronx. The proposed development consists of one new 10 story mixed use building with a bit more than 174,000 gross square feet of total floor area.

It includes 87 dwelling units, 43 vehicle parking spaces and 52 bicycle parking spaces. The light industrial users would be located mainly in the Basement and the 1st Floor. Commercial retail will be located mainly on the Ground Floor. The community facility spaces are equally distributed between the Ground Floor and the 2nd Floor. The commercial offices are located mainly at the 3rd Floor and from the 4th to the 10th Floor would be dedicated to the residential portion and the recreational rooftop.

The proposed development will also have a base height of nine stories that's around 92 feet, will set back 15 feet at the 10th Floor and will rise to a total height of 111 feet. In order to facilitate this development, the applicant is requesting a zoning map amendment to rezone from the existing M12 Light Industrial Zoning District to an M14 with R7 D medium density zoning. Contaminous to the zoning to the project area, the applicant is proposing to modify Appendix F of the zoning resolution to establish an MIH area with options one and two over a portion of Block 2577. They also proposed to modify section one hundred and twenty three sixty three to include zoning District R 7 D to the special mixed Use District 18. Certification of this application was on July 7.

The Bronx Community Board I held a public hearing on September 26, where the applicant presented the proposed development and the Board voted to issue a conditional unfavorable recommendation with 19 votes against, five in favor and three abstaining. The Board submitted a letter of recommendation with the considerations requesting inclusion of 20% to 30% AMI on all types of units, percentage of units for local entrepreneurs, artists, and manufacturers, and including preference to Community Board one residents. The Bronx borough president held a public hearing on October 10 where the applicant presented the proposal and no members of the public attended to testify on the project. Borough president Gibson admitted a letter of recommendation to approve and support the proposed development as it is with comments showing appreciation that 69 out of 87 apartments are offering two, three, or four bedrooms support to keep intention of including a supermarket and recommend using the Fresh program, support the intention of including a full service bank branch as a tenant, and support increasing the quantity of affordable units without compromising the number of family size units and spaces for generating jobs. The City Planning Commission's public hearing is scheduled for November 6.

That concluded my presentation. Thank you very much for

your attention. Great. Thank you very much. We will pick this up for a public hearing on Wednesday unless there are any questions now. Okay. Seeing none, thank you very much. We'll move on to calendar number seven.

Okay. The seventh item on our agenda is a pre hearing review of a zoning map amendment in Queensview District 7. Presenting for the first time to the commission is Dow Chen.

Welcome. Glad to have you

here. Hello, chair Gregorovka, good afternoon, commissioners. Excellent. Alright. This private application, Gleason Funeral Home Commercial Overlay, was certified on July 8 and is back for peer pre hearing review.

The project is located in the Whitestone neighborhood of Community District 7 Queens. The proposed mapping of a commercial C22 overlay district and an existing R2A zoning district will facilitate the development of a second accessory parking lot for the funeral home on Lot 6. The Gleason Funeral Home located at the intersection of 150th Street and 11th Avenue was established in 1913 and remains a family owned funeral home. The proposed new parking lot will contain 22 new parking spaces for the funeral home, thus reducing the need for off street parking within the zoning area during funeral services. This illustration shows a proposed 22 new parking spaces in a dark gray shaded area on Lot 6.

Lot 1 in the middle of the block currently has 16 existing spaces, and Lot 52 in the rear currently has 29 parking spaces. So there will be a total of 64 parking spaces. The proposed action of a C22 commercial overlay is needed and requested because the existing R2A zoning district permits only single family detached homes. Funeral homes and accessory parking are not permitted as of right. With the proposed C two two commercial overlay, homes and accessory parking would be allowed as well as a slightly wider range of local retail and service uses.

On September 9, Queen's Community Board seven voted 42 in favor, zero against and zero abstaining, hence a recommendation of approval. Meanwhile, the Queens borough president held their public hearing on September 26 and submitted their approval on 10/28/2024. Finally, the applicant plans to make an individual in person presentation at the public hearing this Wednesday, November 6. And that concludes my presentation. And I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you.

Great. Excellent. Totally clear. So I'll spare you the questions. But thank you. Congratulations. And we look forward to seeing you again. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay. We'll pick this one up for public hearing. I just want to make sure that nobody else has anything. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to the next item.

The eighth item in our agenda is a prehearing review of the zoning map and zoning text amendments and special permit in Manhattan Community District 6. Our presenter is Allie Song.

Hi, Allie. Hi there.

All right. This is a prehearing presentation for 04:55 First Avenue, which was certified by the Commission at the June 24 review session. This is an application by four fifty five First Avenue Associates and the New York City Economic Development Corporation or EDC to facilitate a new commercial life sciences development at 455 1st Avenue in the Kibbs Bay neighborhood of Manhattan Community District 6. The applicants are requesting several actions, including a zoning map amendment to rezone to C64, a zoning text amendment to map MIH, and a ZR74901 special permit for bulk modifications related to a laboratory. The proposed development is a 13 story commercial life sciences building with a base height of two fifty five feet and a maximum total height of two seventy feet.

The proposed development would have a floor area ratio of 10 and contain about 444,000 zoning square feet. It would be comprised primarily of laboratory space with retail and multipurpose space on the Ground Floor. The image on

the right

is for illustrative purposes only. This new development is replacing the existing Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's public health laboratory. Most of the functions currently housed in this facility will be moving to a new purpose built facility in Harlem. In order to facilitate this development, the applicants are proposing three zoning actions, starting with a zoning map amendment to change the rezoning area, which is shown here in pink, from a R8 district to an r and an r eight district with a C two five commercial overlay to a C six four district. They are also requesting a zoning text amendment to appendix f to establish an MIH area with MIH options one and two in an area coterminous with the rezoning area.

In addition, the applicants are requesting a special permit pursuant to Zoning Resolution Section 70 four-nine zero one to allow modifications for bulk waivers for laboratory uses. This waiver is sought to increase the tower area beyond this height and setback regulations for C6-four districts, which would allow for large regularly shaped floor plates that are suitable for lab use. The proposed bulk waivers are shown on the plan in purple. On 09/11/2024, Manhattan Community Board six voted to approve the application with conditions. The conditions are related to planning for affordable housing in CD 6, maintaining sunlight in Bellevue South Park and allocating 3% of revenue from the development to maintain the park, securing commitments from the MTA for transit in the area, improving the 27th Street pedestrian way, providing active ground floor retail, improving the pedestrian experience on Mount Carmel Place, providing an MOU for community board and other public uses within the development, context specific design, and energy efficiency and environmental resilience.

The resolution passed with a vote of 40 in favor and one opposed. On 10/30/2024, the Manhattan borough president recommended approval of the application with one condition to improve the 27th Street pedestrian way. In summary, the applicants are requesting a number of actions to facilitate a new 13 story commercial life sciences building. As mentioned, this development will be replacing the existing Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's public health laboratory, which will be moving to a new facility in Harlem. At certification, commissioner Benjamin had asked for a bit more information about this new facility, and so I'll provide some information now.

The new facility will be located at 40 West 137th Street on a portion of Harlem Hospital's campus. It will be a 10 story, 240,000 square foot building operated by DOHMH. EDC will be managing construction, and this construction is being funded primarily through city capital expenditure funding. And the facility is planned to open in early twenty twenty six. Thank you so much for listening. I'm happy to address any additional questions.

Great. Thank you very much. So we'll pick this one up on Wednesday for a public hearing unless

there

are any questions now for Ali. Okay. Great. Thank you. And I suspect that we're going to hear from you again right now. Is that correct? Are you doing Yes.

That is correct.

So stay put everybody. Item 15 Involves Alley 2, Spark Kipps Bay. Let's go right to it.

Okay. The ninth item on our agenda is a pre hearing review of the zoning map and zoning text amendment, special permit, disposition of city owned property, a site selection and acquisition in Manhattan Community District 6. Representer is Allie.

Nice to see you again.

Welcome back.

Alright. This is a prehearing presentation for SPARC Kipps Bay, which was certified by the commission at the June 24 re review session. This is a public application by the New York City Economic Development Corporation or EDC, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services or DCAS, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner or OCME to facilitate a new life sciences and education campus at 425 East 25th Street in the Kipps Bay neighborhood of Manhattan Community District 6. The applicants are requesting several actions. EDC is seeking a zoning map amendment to rezone to C64, a zoning text amendment to map MIH, and two special permits related to laboratory use and bulk waivers.

EDC and DCAS are jointly seeking a disposition of city owned property and an acquisition of real property interest for an NYC Health and Hospitals facility. EDC, DCAS and OCME are jointly seeking site selection and acquisition for an OCME facility. And also in a related application, Spark Pedestrian Bridge City Map Change, EDC is seeking a city map change to demap an existing pedestrian bridge over the FDR. The proposed development is a 1,800,000 zoning square foot science park and research campus. The campus is proposed to contain three buildings and a publicly accessible open space with a kiosk.

This is an illustrative diagram of the SPARC development and its program. The two towers on the western side of the block referred to as Buildings B1 And B2 are proposed to contain commercial life sciences labs as well as space for health and hospitals and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The easternmost building, labeled Building A, is planned to contain space for the City University of New York, or CUNY, including Hunter Schools of Nursing, Health Professions and Arts and Sciences, Grove Manhattan Community College, which is Allied Health Sciences, Health Studies and Nursing programs, and the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, as well as a new public high school. Between the buildings is a new 0.6 acre publicly accessible open space. As part of the proposed development, the applicant also plans to include pedestrian safety improvements, a redesign of the pedestrian bridge over FCR to provide ADA accessibility and coastal resiliency infrastructure.

The proposed development maximum zoning envelope as certified in June is shown here in red. The height of the maximum zoning envelope varies from 500 feet along 1st Avenue on the western side of the block to three seventy feet along FDR on the eastern side of the block. Since certification, the applicant has been working on the design for Building A, which is proposed to contain the new public high school and space for CUNY. They're now requesting a CPC modification to the certified envelope in order to facilitate a better design for these schools. These modifications will allow the building to meet SEA's needs, optimizing floor plates to allow for maximum light and air into all the classrooms.

This change would add additional flexibility for the design of Building A, which will eventually need to fit within the change zoning envelope. But it will not change the overall amount of floor area. Proposed modified envelope is shown here. You can see it will include the red envelope that's the certified envelope and then this additional increase in envelope, which is shown in blue. So the applicant is proposing to increase the base height of Building A from 85 feet to 120 feet and increase the tower width of Building A, decreasing the distance between Buildings A And B2 from 110 feet to 60 feet.

Oh, sorry. There's not a change to any of the proposed actions, including the bulk waiver special permit. All of the bulk waivers are located on the other side of the lot on Building B1. Both the certified envelope and this new proposed modified envelope for Building A fit within the as of right heightened setback regulations for the proposed C64 District. So this is just an illustration that compares possible floor layouts for classrooms in a triple loaded scenario or a double loaded corridor scenario.

As you can see, the thinner, longer floor plate allows for double loaded corridors instead of triple loaded corridors to make sure that all of the classrooms have access to windows as opposed to this triple loaded scenario where classrooms in the middle would not have direct window access. So this is the reason why they're seeking this modification. But moving on to more about the the proposed development. Here you can see the Ground floor plan for the proposed development. Building B 1 would have its main entrance on 1st Avenue with with the Ground Floor including an entrance lobby for H and H and retail space.

Those accessing the site on car could be dropped off using the new access drive. Entrances for the different uses within Building B2 would face the open space, and the main entrances to Building A would also face the open space. The proposed project contains below grade parking for two twenty five cars, which would be accessible through ramps on the DMAS East 26th Street to keep local traffic within the development site and off East 25th Street. Loading berths as required by the zoning resolution are also proposed to be located along the DMAS East twenty sixth Street. To facilitate improved circulation, the applicant is introducing bidirectional traffic on East 26th Street.

At certification, chair Grodnik asked how the decision to provide this bidirectionality on East 26th Street was made. The applicant has confirmed that bidirectionality allows for operational efficiency for the Spark site since loading will be occurring on East 26th Street. Currently, in order to access East 26th Street, cars have to drive east along East 28th Street or East 30th Street and then south along the FTR Service Road, which adds to traffic, Allowing for two way traffic along East 26th Street, along with the addition of the two way access drive through the site, will improve the overall traffic circulation in the area. At Certification, Commissioner Cerullo also wanted to know who owns and maintains East 26th Street. The DMAP Street is currently in H and H's jurisdiction and is primarily used by H and H and FDNY, and the city maintains the street.

To facilitate the proposed development, the applicants are proposing several zoning actions. The first action is a zoning map amendment requested by EDC to change the rezoning area shown here in a black outline from an R8 district to a C64 district. The second requested action is a zoning text amendment to Appendix F to establish an MIH area with MIH options one and two in an area coterminous with the rezoning area. Next, EDC is requesting a special permit pursuant to ZR74171 to allow for use group seven laboratory use not otherwise allowed by the underlying use regulations. EDC is also requesting a special permit pursuant to ZR 74,901 to allow modifications to heightened setback regulations for c six four districts.

The requested bulk waivers include increasing the tower area beyond the alternative sky exposure plan and reducing the optional front open area for Building B 1 along 1st Avenue and East 25th Street. The next action is a disposition of city owned property sought by EDC and DCAS. In this action, the western parcel highlighted in blue is proposed to be disposed of to a private developer who will be selected by EDC through a request for proposal or RFP process. A portion of the eastern parcel highlighted in purple will be disposed of to CUNY. The open space will remain in city jurisdiction, but through this action it may be disposed to the private developer of the western parcel for maintenance or otherwise for access easements as needed.

The next action is site selection and the acquisition of real property interest for the OCME facility in Building B2. And this action is being sought by EDC, DCAS, and OCME. And EDC and DCAS are also seeking an acquisition action for the H and H Outpatient Care and Training Center in Building B1. Lastly, in a related application, EDC is seeking a city map change to demap the existing street lines shown here in blue and map new street lines along the sidewalk as shown here in purple. This action will also demap the elevations of the existing pedestrian bridge to allow for a bridge that's ADA accessible and also has a higher clearance that matches city and state standards.

The lead agency for SEEKER is the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Housing Economic Development and Workforce. A Notice of Completion for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, or DEIS, was issued on 06/20/2024. The DEIS identified significant adverse impacts with respect to historic and cultural resources, transportation and construction. Mitigation measures are identified in the DEIS and will be explored further in the FEIS. On 09/11/2024, Manhattan Community Board six voted to approve the applications with with the application with conditions.

The conditions relate to planning for affordable housing in CD 6, maintaining sunlight in the Bellevue Sobriety Garden, securing commitments from the MTA for transit in the area, providing active ground floor retail, providing an MOU for community board and other public uses within Spark, context specific design, and energy efficiency and environmental resilience. The resolution passed with a vote of 41 in favor and one opposed. Oh, sorry. Was I on the wrong side for that? But oh, I'm sorry.

Sorry about that.

On 10/30/2024, the Manhattan Borough President recommended approval of the application with conditions. The conditions are related to prioritizing affordable housing in CD6 moving forward, fewer parking spaces, a broader range of uses for the commercial life sciences portion of SPARC, workforce development opportunities, adding an early education facility on-site, and working with H and H to open the Bellevue Gardens to the public. In summary, the applicants are requesting a number of actions to facilitate a science park and research campus with life sciences labs, health and hospital space, an OCME facility, CUNY, and a public high school. The campus is also proposed to contain a publicly accessible open space with a kiosk. The commission asked a number of questions about certification.

I've answered some of them today in my presentation, but we have notified the applicant of the rest of them so that they can respond on Wednesday at the public hearing. Thank you so much for listening. Are there any additional questions?

Terrific. Thank you very much. There's a question from Commissioner Osorio.

Mhmm.

Thank you, Jerry. Thanks so much. Just a quick question.

I mean, we'll hear from them directly. But do you know if the MTA has responded to the question on the bus service, or or is that something that we can request?

I don't know. We've noted I mean, we've definite the applicant is aware of all of the requests from the BP and the CB, but I don't know if they have a response from the MTA or if EDC has a response related to that specific ask.

Thank you. If if we can follow-up on that item given that they

may not be here, then thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you, commissioner. Okay. We'll pick this one up on Wednesday. Thank you again, Ali.

Thanks. Okay. The tenth item on our agenda is a prehearing review of a zoning map and zoning tax amendments and special permit in Brooklyn Community District 7. Our presenter is Chuky Sai. I'll just note Thank Commissioner Rampershade is

Mr. I'm recusing this one.

This time Commissioner Rampershade is recused. I got it right. Thank you very much Commissioner. Okay,

Chuky.

Sorry, Sarah. Am I doing 850 or 441?

441.

I think

we got Four four one Prospect app is first.

But we we have the wrong slide up.

We'll pull up that presentation in just a second.

All right. Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

This is the pre hearing review for the 441 And 467 Prospect Avenue rezoning, otherwise known as Arrow Linen. This is a private application by Arrow Linen Supply Company to facilitate two new 13 storey developments totaling 248,000 square feet with two forty four dwelling units, including 61 MIH units in Windsor Terrace, Community District 7, Brooklyn. This application certified 06/24/2024. The project area consists of a mid block portion of Prospect Avenue. It totals 13 full tax lots among the 11 non applicant owned lots, 10 are three story, three unit residential buildings, and there is a four story, 16 unit residential building as well.

The development site consists of two interior tax lots, one of which is a large flag shaped lot. They have a combined total area of 54,085 square feet. The development site is improved with a one and two story laundry facility and unenclosed accessory parking. The surrounding area contains a mix of residential, commercial and community facility uses. Prospect Park West, just east of the project area is a local commercial corridor with a range of retail and service uses.

Prospect Park is located two blocks to the north of the project area and Greenwood Cemetery is four blocks south just off the slide. The surrounding area is well served by public transit. The 15th Street station served by the F and G lines is less than a quarter mile from the project area and three buses serve the area. The surrounding area is predominantly mapped R5B and R6B. There's an R8B district mapped at Bartell Pritchard Square.

And there are C24 commercial overlays mapped along Prospect Park West and in Bartell Pritchard Square. The proposed actions to facilitate this project are one, a zoning map amendment from an R5B district to an R71 district two, a zoning text amendment to create an MIH area and three, a zoning special permit to waive mandatory parking minimums. I should note that there is no parking proposed as part of this project. On September 2024, Community Board seven held a two part public hearing. And on 09/18/2024, voted 30 in favor and six against to disapprove the application with conditions.

Those conditions are listed here verbatim, and they are that ArrowLinen shall, one, immediately retract the land use application two, undertake further community engagement with Windsor Terrace residents on the proposed rezoning Three, conduct more transparent meetings and consider the feedback and concerns raised during those meetings. And four, resubmit its rezoning application after conducting those meetings. On 10/09/2024, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso held a public hearing and on 10/30/2024 submitted a recommendation to approve the application with modificationsconditions. Over the next two slides, you can see the recommendations as written by the borough president, and I will summarize them. The borough president's first recommendation is to substantially increase the percentage of affordable units and depth of affordability across the project to go beyond the MIH requirements.

He offers three strategies for the applicant to achieve this. The first of those would be to go above and beyond the requirements of the MIH program to construct between 3040% of the units in the buildings as permanently affordable housing units. The second of those strategies would be to adhere to MIH option one across the site, but to construct the project in two phases, one MIH only building and 1100% affordable housing building financed through an HPD new construction program. The third of those strategies would be to construct one or both of the buildings using NYCHA Section eight vouchers. The borough president's second recommendation responds to community discussions around building height and would support design changes so long as they maintain the project's unit count and unit distribution.

The borough president notes that if a shorter bulk year alternative is identified, there should be no significant reduction in the FAR of the project, including the number and diversity of units. The borough president's third recommendation is that the non applicant controlled lots should not be removed from the project area but be considered for an R6B district rather than an R7B. The BP's fourth recommendation is that the applicant should relocate ArrowLinen business activities at this site to within Brooklyn's industrial areas. And finally, I just want to note that at the time of certification, there were a number of questions from the commission about building design and environmental remediation at the site. I have asked the applicant team to be ready to speak to these questions at their public hearing, which is this Wednesday.

Thank you. Great. Thanks, Juki. The questions are related to that. We'll have

the applicant pick it up if there are other questions. Commissioner Benjamin?

Question. I don't know if we asked the applicant before. How many employees does Arrow Linen have?

I want to ask the applicant to speak to that.

And I understood that they had a site identified that they were looking to move their operation to. If you could ask them about that site, I would be very interested in what's going to happen to those jobs.

Great. I will pass those questions along. Thanks.