REDISTRICTING
Orange County Legislature Fails to Advance New Map
The Orange County Legislature failed to advance three county legislative draft maps to the public hearing stage after a meeting on July 26th lost its quorum of legislators necessary to move the maps to the next stage. The county needs to have a new map in place before petitioning for the 2025 primary gets underway next year.
On June 20, 2024, the New York City Council passed Int. 904 A. This legislation requires the Department of Buildings (DOB) to establish a proactive inspection program aimed at identifying hazardous building conditions. This bill was created in response to last winter’s collapse of a residential building which left many families displaced at 1915 Billingsley Terrace in the Bronx, and the fatal April 2023 collapse of a parking garage at 57 Ann Street in Lower … <Read More>
EVENTS
June 18 Conference- N.Y. Redistricting: What Happened and What’s Next?
New York Law School will host a conference on redistricting from 9:30 to Noon at the school (located at 185 W. Broadway in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood). Panels will focus on the 2014 constitutional amendment, the post-2020 process and what happened, and next steps for a new constitutional amendment before the post-2030 process gets underway. 2022 Court Special Master Jonathan Cervas will keynote the event. … <Read More>
On June 4, 2024, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate the Temple Court Building (now the Beekman Hotel) Atrium as an interior landmark. The Temple Court Building and Annex, located at 12213 Nassau Street in lower Manhattan, was designated as a New York City individual landmark in 1998. The building and its ornate atrium are rare examples of a full-height interior skylighted atrium inside a late-19th century office building.
On May 23, 2024, the New York City Council passed a package of bills to improve parking garage safety by identifying and addressing parking garage structural deficiencies. These bills, Int. 135-A, 170-A, and 231-A, were created in response to a parking garage that collapsed at 57 Ann Street in Lower Manhattan on April 18, 2023, which killed garage manager Willis Moore and injured five others.
On April 17, 2024, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Trust for Public Land (TPL) announced that construction has commenced on the five new Green Infrastructure playgrounds at schools in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The playgrounds are designed to absorb more than 3.5 million gallons of stormwater every year to curb runoff that floods nearby streets and overwhelms local sewer systems in addition to polluting the East River.