City’s Adult Use Zoning Rules Upheld

The Court of Appeals, after 22 years of litigation, upheld the City’s adult use zoning rules and dismissed the complaint challenging the rules. In 1994 the City’s Department of City Planning completed a study of sexually focused businesses: adult video and bookstores, adult live or movie theaters, and topless or nude bars. The study led to the passage in 1995 of a zoning amendment barring adult establishments from residential and most commercial and manufacturing … <Read More>


CityLaw Profile: Jumaane Williams, Council Member and Chair of Housing and Buildings Committee

Jumaane Williams, with a strong background as a community organizer, was elected to the City Council in 2009 to represent the 45th Council District which covers the Flatbush, East Flatbush, Flatlands, and parts of Midwood and Canarsie neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In his work prior to and as a City Council Member, Jumaane Williams has displayed a passion for community issues like combating gun violence, youth development, tenant advocacy and affordable housing. He plans to run … <Read More>


Comptroller Audit Finds that HPD Review of Affordable Housing Sponsors Was Effective

Comptroller audit finds that HPD’s controls to ensure that housing incentives were rewarded to qualified applicants were largely effective. On June 27, 2017, the Office of the city Comptroller Scott Stringer released a report of an audit of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The audit sought to evaluate whether HPD had adequate controls to ensure that its housing incentive projects were properly awarded to property owners and developers that qualified for the program, … <Read More>


CityLaw Profile: Frederick Schaffer, Chair of the Campaign Finance Board

In February 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Frederick Schaffer as the Chair of the City’s Campaign Finance Board. The Board, which will be thirty years old next year, is responsible for enforcing New York City’s campaign finance law, monitoring campaign contributions and disclosures, overseeing the public matching funds program and enforcing the rules. Schaffer takes the reigns as the Board heads into the 2017 mayoral campaign.

Schaffer was born and raised in Brooklyn. One … <Read More>


A Better Path for East Midtown

Early in January 2017 the City of New York began the official public approval process for a proposal to rezone East Midtown Manhattan. The proposal was based in part on a report by the East Midtown Steering Committee co-chaired by the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and the District 4 Council Member Daniel Garodnick.

The new 2017 proposal is the third proposal for rezoning East Midtown. In 2013 the Bloomberg Administration proposed to rezone East … <Read More>


City Council Subcommittee Considering Three Building Complex on Edgewater Street

Zoning Subcommittee heard testimony on proposed 371-unit complex on Staten Island. On May 30, 2017, the City Council’s Zoning Subcommittee heard testimony regarding an application submitted by Pier 21 Development, LLC, to construct a mixed-use development with 371 residential units in three buildings in Staten Islands’ Rosebank neighborhood. The applicant sought to rezone the development site from manufacturing to residential with a commercial overlay and to expand the Special Stapleton Waterfront District to cover the … <Read More>