[NYguy]

Some feel the City's moving too fast (it's planned to be adopted next year), some too slow (but it won't go into effect until 2017 ).



http://observer.com/2012/08/midtown-...superscrapers/
Midtown Slowdown: Councilman Garodnick Asks City to Take Its Time on Rezoning Midtown for Superscrapers



By Matt Chaban
8/21/12

Easy does it. That is the message from Councilman Dan Garodnick, echoing concerns of two Midtown community boards, that the Bloomberg administration is moving too fast in its plans to rezone Midtown East to allow for taller skyscrapers. The Councilman, who represents the eastern flank of Manhattan, applauded the plan in a letter to Planning Commish Amanda Burden last week shared with The Observer, but he worries to plan is so complex, it needs more time to be considered. The Department of City Planning argues there is enough time to get the job done before the Bloomberg administration is out in a year and a half.

Primarily, Mr. Garodnick wants the scoping session, when the framework is solidified, pushed back six months to March. In the letter, he also criticized plans to release an initial framework in the coming weeks, “before Labor Day—when many New Yorkers are totally disengaged from the political process.” The plan was to have the massive rezoning—both in space and scope—enter public review by the first quarter of next year, but pushing back scoping would likely push that into the summer or fall. The rezoning would almost certainly be approved by the next administration as a result.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion...HKlBQvTdzBeTqL
A ‘Towering’ shame: Mike’s Midtown mess

By Steve Cuozzo
August 20, 2012

Manhattan’s premier office district is increasingly obsolete — its buildings frozen in time by half-century-old zoning rules. But Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to finally up-zone the Grand Central area looks less like a fix than a way to set up a piggy bank to pay for future mayors’ “street improvement” follies. The area, full of buildings up to 70 years old, urgently needs larger new ones than current zoning allows. (Except through a review process so arduous it’s only been used once, rules from 1961 don’t permit buildings to be replaced with new ones of even the same size.)

But the city isn’t making it easy for landlords to get rid of the relics. If Bloomberg really wants to kick-start Midtown East rebuilding, all he has to do is say: You can now put up larger structures, period — no strings attached. Instead, he’s forcing developers to cough up big bucks on top of what are already the country’s highest construction costs — chiefly through something called a District Improvement Bonus, proceeds from which will go into a Pandora’s Box to fund future mayors’ political whims. The city wants the dough to remedy such horrible “pedestrian realm challenges” as “narrow sidewalks and bottlenecks in subway stations.” Hello, slush fund?

The rezoning sounds good. In 78 blocks between 39th and 57th streets, new buildings could have up to 60 percent more floor space, depending on the exact location. (The plan is slated for a City Council vote early next year.) But look at the catches:

* It won’t kick in until 2017. If change is as urgently needed as the city claims, why let East Midtown’s lousy buildings rot for five more years? Supposedly, the reason is so their redevelopment won’t conflict with the city’s Hudson Yards dream, but the areas are so different and remote that real-estate insiders say they’re not in competition.

* Although the rezoning is supposed to “streamline” things, the largest new buildings — the ones developers will most want to put up — still must undergo the city’s infamous land-use review procedure, a guarantee of delay and litigation. Maximum-size projects must also undergo micro-scrutiny over design and skyline impact.

* Worst of all, developers must kick back to the city to exercise their “right” to build larger. That’s what the DIB would be for.