Variances granted for HPD project in Borough Park

Image: Courtesy of Bricolage Designs
Image: Courtesy of Bricolage Designs

HPD claimed site’s former railway use complicated development of seventeen apartment buildings. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development selected the Southern Brooklyn Community Organization to build seventeen, four-story affordable housing buildings on two narrow City-owned parcels on 37th Street in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The block-long parcels are separated by 13th Avenue and were once occupied by the South Brooklyn Railroad and the elevated BMT … <Read More>


Limited rezonings along Carroll Street approved

Courtesy The Center for Negative Thinking LLC

Separate public and private proposals impacted eight lots left out of the Carroll Gardens/Columbia Street rezoning. On April 28, 2011, the City Council approved independent proposals by the Department of City Planning and a private developer, Marshall Sohne, to rezone portions of Carroll Street between Columbia and Van Brunt Streets in Brooklyn’s Columbia Street Waterfront District. The two proposals impacted portions of the north and south side … <Read More>


West 129th Street cul-de-sac eliminated for charter school

NYCHA proposal would restore West 129th Street in the St. Nicholas Houses as part of Harlem Children’s Zone’s charter school plan. On March 30, 2011, the City Planning Commission approved the New York City Housing Authority’s proposal to re-connect West 129th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. The City in the 1950s closed a portion of West 129th Street by creating a cul-de-sac … <Read More>


BSA denies challenge to twelve-story homeless shelter

Community group argued that proposed homeless shelter did not qualify as a hotel under the zoning resolution. Buildings in 2010 issued the Bowery Residents’ Committee a permit to convert a twelve-story factory building at 127 West 25th Street in Chelsea to a homeless shelter and offices. BRC planned to create a 32-bed chemical dependency crisis center, a 96-bed reception center for the homeless, a 200-bed homeless shelter, and two outpatient counseling programs serving up

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New Chambers Street residential building approved

Owner altered window and facade details to gain Landmarks approval . On April 12, 2011, Landmarks approved Fishman Holdings’ revised proposal to construct an eight-story building on a vacant lot at 87 Chambers Street in the Tribeca South Historic District. The through-block building will front Reade  Street to the north. The lot had been occupied by a store-and-loft building that  Fishman originally planned to convert … <Read More>


Howard Goldman Reflects on His Legal Career and Land Use Issues in the City

Howard Goldman’s 35-year career as a land use attorney has ranged from helping native Alaskan communities create coastline regulations to assisting developers navigate New York City’s complex land use process. Aspiring to work for the Natural Resources Defense Council or the Sierra Club, Goldman in 1972  received an ad hoc degree in environmental and pre-law studies from SUNY at Buffalo. Goldman stayed on to earn a law degree, and after graduation he joined Neighborhood … <Read More>