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Land Use, Housing & Zoning
217-221 West 29th Street, application by 221 W29 Residential LLC for a Zoning Text Amendment
WHEREAS, The applicant 221 W29 Residential LLC is seeking a Text Amendment to the Zoning Resolution to alter the streetscape requirements in M1-6D districts and an authorization from the City Planning Commission pursuant to the proposed Text Amendment to reduce the ground floor retail requirement at 217-221 West 29th Street; and
WHEREAS, The project is located in an M1-6D district in an Inclusionary Housing Designated Area, and would contain 95 units, including 19 affordable housing units (though 20 are mentioned in the application); and
WHEREAS, The affordable units will serve households at no more than 60 percent of Area Median Income (AMI) for 35 years pursuant and then the owner intends to have the affordable units serve higher income households with income at up to 80 percent of AMI for the remaining life of the building; and
WHEREAS, The project site was rezoned only five years ago in 2011 from an M1-5 district to an M1-6D district, with the goal of preserving neighborhood character while encouraging residential growth and enlivening the streetscape with a requirement that sites with 50 ft or more of street frontage set aside at least 50 percent of building frontage for ground floor retail; and
WHEREAS, The requirement that sites with 50 ft of frontage or more be required to provide at least 50 percent of their frontage for retail was carefully considered as part of the planning, environmental and political action of creating and mapping the M1-6D district; and
WHEREAS, The proposed Text Amendment to add ZR Section 42-486 would allow the City Planning Commission to modify, by authorization, the dimension of the minimum frontage and depth of the required ground floor commercial use zoning lots that have a street frontage of less than 75 ft, but more than the base of 50 ft; and
WHEREAS, The Text Amendment would affect all zoning lots that have frontage of greater than or equal to 50 feet and less than 75 feet within the subject M1-6D district as well as any future district mapped as M1-6D; and
WHEREAS, The applicant mentioned specific challenging conditions on the site, including problems due to construction that impacted the foundation of the adjacent building, as well as high groundwater levels that led to issues with the construction of the building's foundation; and
WHEREAS, CB5 believes that there may be particular challenges associated with developing a conforming building on the subject site that includes below-grade parking and believes that the aforementioned conditions may meet the threshold for constituting unique physical conditions for purposes of the granting of a variance pursuant to ZR Section 72-21; and
WHEREAS, The proposed Text Amendment is sought by a developer and we have no evidence that the Department of City Planning believes that it erred its finding five years ago that the retail requirement was appropriate; and
WHEREAS, If the Department of City Planning believes that it erred five years ago in supporting the ground floor retail requirement in the M1-6D district it should carefully study the issue and put forth a modification, if need be, that is carefully tailored to the instances where the requirement does not allow for a feasible as-of-right development; and
WHEREAS, Community Board Five sees no rationale for a new provision of the Zoning Resolution to be added for the purposes of benefiting a single developer when such a modification to the Zoning Resolution would reduce the provision of ground floor retail envisioned as part of the carefully negotiated rezoning of 2011; and
WHEREAS, Community Board Five finds that adding a new provision to the Zoning Resolution for the benefit of a single owner five years after the creation and mapping of the M1-6D district is antithetical to sound planning principles as it favors a single property owner at the expense of the broader community and city; therefore be it
RESOLVED, Community Board Five recommends denial of the application by 221 W29 Residential LLC for a Zoning Text Amendment to alter the streetscape requirements in M1-6D and for an Authorization from the Commission to reduce required ground floor retail pursuant to that proposed Amendment