Rendering of the proposed 13 Greenpoint Avenue building designed by Kutnicki Bernsteing Architects.
Planning Commission approved bulk regulation amendment for an eleven-story building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. On April 26, 2017, the City Planning Commission issued a favorable report on an application submitted by Kent/Greenpoint, LLC, to develop an eleven-story mixed-use building in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood. The applicant sought to amend bulk regulations related to the location of legal windows, landscaping requirements for off-street parking and minimum street wall heights in order to orientate the massing of the proposed building towards Transmitter Park.
The site is currently occupied by five one- and two-story warehouses and abuts WNYC Transmitter Park, a 6.6 acre public park opened in 2012. The proposed building would contain 66,800 square feet of floor area, about 77 dwelling units, 4,300 square feet of ground floor retail and 36 off-street parking spots. Because the area is designated as an inclusionary housing area, the applicant intends to have six to eight units of affordable housing.
In 2005, as part of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning, the subject lot was rezoned from a manufacturing district to a residential district with commercial overlay. The current zoning regulations already allow for a building with similar floor-area. The applicant sought zoning amendments to bulk regulations in order to build a shorter, fatter building on a smaller portion of the lot.
Rendering of the proposed 13 Greenpoint Avenue building designed by Kutnicki Bernsteing Architects.
At the Commission hearing on March 8, 2017, the applicant’s land use attorney testified that the developer made changes to the initially submitted plans by increasing the buildings set along the residential side from eight to thirty feet and along the commercial side from seventeen to twenty feet. The applicant also plans to landscape the open area between the new building and Transmitter-Park with a dense screen of trees and shrubs.
In its report, the Commission the application for the bulk regulation amendment to be appropriate. The report noted that under current zoning regulations a development could directly abut the park with a blank wall and no legal windows. The Commission also stated that the amendment would “enable the development to be a more efficient, single building with a single core and improved urban design.”
The application will move to the City Council for consideration in the coming weeks.
CPC: 13–15 Green Point Avenue, Brooklyn (N 160282 ZRK) (April 26, 2017).
By: Jonathon Sizemore (Jonathon is the CityLaw Fellow and a New York Law School Graduate, Class of 2016).