[NYguy]

https://www.thecity.nyc/2020/7/12/21...ty-coronavirus

NYC Developers Push to Jump-Start Public Review of Key Construction Projects


BY GREG DAVIDG
JUL 12, 2020

Twenty-four proposals in pre-review with city planners are frozen. Projects awaiting certification for public scrutiny range from an ambitious rezoning of the Gowanus Canal area in Brooklyn to a sprawling mixed-use development encompassing the Queens waterfront site once coveted by Amazon.

Left in limbo are all the players in the six-month review process known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, during which developers make their pitches and the public weighs in before the City Council and the mayor get the final say.

“It is critical to the city to get going on ULURP,” said Mitch Korbey, chair of the land use and zoning group at New York-based law firm Herrick, Feinstein. “Doing so will demonstrate the city is in recovery and moving ahead on development.”

City officials publicly agree with the real estate interests.

Vicki Been, deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said during a recent webinar sponsored by the Real Estate Board of New York and the law firm Greenberg Traurig that restarting ULURP was important and that she expected it would begin again in “the early fall.” She wouldn’t be more specific when a REBNY representative pressed for a precise date.

Been cited the technological challenges of the ULURP process, which requires action by the Department of City Planning to certify the project. That’s followed by a public review with recommendations by the local community board and the borough president, a vote by the City Planning Commission and then, in most cases, an up-or-down vote by the City Council — all within six months.

Critics note that both the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Board of Standards and Appeals have resumed work, and the City Council is holding online hearings.

Three major redevelopment efforts will test that matrix and are key to reviving the economy, say their supporters.

The first is a rezoning of 80 blocks in Brooklyn anchored by the Gowanus Canal. A draft environmental study that was necessary to start ULURP was being completed when City Planning instituted its shutdown. The city expects the changes would generate more than 8,000 new apartments by 2035, at least a third of them affordable.

It is one of the 15 rezonings de Blasio promised when he took office that would trade increased density for a wave of both market rate and affordable housing. Only six of the zoning plans have been approved, and Gowanus is almost certain to be the last major effort of the administration.

Councilmember Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), who represents the area and sparked the effort with a series of meetings beginning in 2013, said it’s time for action on the project.

“At this urgent and clarifying moment, if we get it right, the Gowanus neighborhood rezoning offers us an opportunity to strengthen our city’s resilience, take meaningful steps toward desegregation and racial justice, support economic recovery, and help lay the foundation for a vibrant, equitable, and sustainable future,” he told THE CITY.