Mayor Announces $50 Million Redevelopment of Orchard Beach Pavilion

Elected officials announced new investment into Bronx beach pavilion reconstruction. On May 26, 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio, alongside Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., announced a $50 million investment to redevelop the Bronx’s Orchard Beach pavilion in Pelham Bay Park. The money would go to restore the currently closed pavilion. The Mayor has committed $20 million in capital funding, and $10 million has been committed … <Read More>


Subcommittee Hears Testimony on Development Adjacent to Transmitter Park

Zoning Subcommittee heard testimony on proposed eleven-story tower to abut WNYC Transmitter Park in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood. On May 16, 2017, the City Council’s Zoning Subcommittee heard testimony regarding 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 … <Read More>


Planning Commission Approves Controversial Vinegar Hill Development

The City Planning Commission approved the construction of a controversial eight-story residential building in Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood. On May 10, 2017, the City Planning Commission issued a favorable report on an application from 251 Front Street Realty Inc. The project would result in a new residential building at 251 Front Street in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood. The applicant revised the proposal from a nine-story building to an eight-story building weeks before approval.


BSA Grants Variance for Transfer of Development Rights to Facilitate a New Charlton Street Development

The transferring property was granted a variance 15 years ago, but the development of the adjacent property had not been under the applicant’s control. On December 6, 2016, the Board of Standards and Appeals unanimously voted to grant 104 Charlton Street Condominium’s request to transfer unused development rights from the applicant’s property, located at 104 Charlton Street, to an adjacent property located at 108 Charlton Street in Manhattan’s Special Hudson Square District. Because the site … <Read More>


Proposed Development Raised Community Ire, Deemed Out-of-Scale by Commissioners

Commissioners asked for revisions to proposal, which would see two garage buildings converted− one to an apartment building and the other into two townhouses. On March 28, 2017, the Landmarks Preservation Commission considered a proposal for two adjoining lots at 536 Halsey Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant/Expanded Stuyvesant Heights Historic District. The midblock site is occupied by two early-20th-century utilitarian buildings; a three-story Queen Anne-style structure built in 1904 and a one-story building. Both were … <Read More>