Posted Mar 26, 2024, 3:59 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,915
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I’m shocked NIMBYs would try to block this…
https://tribecacitizen.com/2024/03/2...o-fight-tower/
Independence Plaza neighbors gearing up to fight tower
March 26, 2024
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A small group of Independence Plaza residents are organizing against the proposed tower for Independence Plaza, and they are looking for volunteers with time, expertise and funding. They held their first group community meeting last night, attracting a substantial crowd, nearly all of whom — there was a show of hands — are opposed to *any* construction on the site.
So far the core group includes Diane Lapson, the longtime IPN Tenant Association president; Richard Corman, the president of the Downtown Independent Democrats political club; Stuart Gold, a retired litigator who lives in Tribeca; and Stephanie Kelemen, a Greenwich Street resident and a commercial litigator. Councilman Chris Marte organized and led the meeting, his second on the proposed tower.
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The initial plan — and it was vague but this is what I gleaned — is to create a non-profit that can raise money to hire a zoning expert who can keep pace with Vornado Realty Trust and Stellar Management — the owners of IPN and the developers of the tower. Organizers already know they need more expertise to understand the zoning regulations for the building, which developers have said can be 900 feet tall as-of-right, and the covenants established in the 1970s, when Independence Plaza was created.
“Nobody in Tribeca likes this project,” Kelemen said. “New York City is now the ‘City of Yes’ — the city of anything goes. Our sunlight and our open spaces are all up for grabs unless we fight. This is our time as a community to come together and see if it’s something that we want to fight for.”
I heard from a press representative for Stellar before the meeting and asked if there was any schedule for filings with the city, and so far, no. “Stellar is engaged in ongoing discussions with the Department of City Planning,” he said. “We are still too early in the process to provide a specific timeline for permitting or any updated renderings.”
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He noted that the project will go through the full CEQR — City Environmental Quality Review — which would identify adverse environmental effects, assesses their significance, and propose measures to eliminate or mitigate significant impacts through an Environmental Impact Statement. (I didn’t think that was true of proposed buildings that fell within the zoning code, aka as-of-right, but always learning…) That review process includes opportunities for public presentations and comments.
I also asked what was happening to the current residents in the IPN townhouses that will be razed to make room for the tower, and he said that no residents will be displaced from Independence Plaza as a result of the project. “Stellar and Vornado are working with all existing residents who want to remain part of the IP community to relocate them to similar or better units,” he said.
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In a series of questions, neighbors in the audience listed some of their reasons why they were against the tower: noise and dust during construction, the mountains of trash created by big buildings; the potential damage to the historic townhouses on Harrison; the fact that the building (along with the other Independence Plaza buildings) will be in a flood zone and — some seemed to think — is already built on top of sinking ground (of course that would be true of the three existing IPN buildings as well). There was also opposition to the idea of luxury development — an apartment building for only the wealthy.
Few comments were made about the ridiculous height, which would be my #1 objection. (And while we are on that topic, why doesn’t Vornado buy 45 Park Place and finish that monstrosity?)
“This is the wrong place for a tower,” said Diane Lapson, who then referenced the neighborhood’s experience on 9/11. “We paid our dues already. Enough. We are a special needs community. Many of us have PTSD from 9/11.”
Councilman Marte emphasized his experience with the Two Bridges tower development (which will go forward) and noted that the failings there were largely that the community was not monolithic in its approach. Some thought the towers should be smaller; some thought they should not be built at all. It undermined their negotiating power, he said.
“Too much division allowed developers to have their way,” he said.
The group does not have a plan yet, but thinks it is early enough in the process to be effective, Richard Corman said. “We have to minimize the worst and maximize the benefit for people in the community,” he added.
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