Residents Seek To Restart Yorkville Rezoning Project

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A proposal for a community-initiated rezoning of six Yorkville lots is moving forward as a Community Board task force, according to a meeting Tuesday night.

Adam Wald, a board member of Community Board 8, first presented the idea last year and said he's bringing it up again as an opportunity to build affordable housing in the neighborhood that might not last.

“The primary goal in the community needs statement has always been for more affordable housing," Wald said, but added that the district hasn't done much "to promote the development of affordable housing" in the past 10 years.

"At some point you have to stop paying lip service to these district needs statements, essentially lying in the production of these documents, and step up and promote the development of affordable housing," Wald said.

The idea is to convert three parcels — currently zoned for low-density manufacturing and commercial uses — to higher-density residential uses. Any rezoning under current law would mandate the use of a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing formula, Wald added.

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine also highlighted those same lots in his Housing Manhattanites report issued earlier this year. According to Levine's report, the sites could fit 1,541 residential units, 385 of which would be permanently affordable under MIH.

Wald said the time to start taking charge on how those parcels should be used is now, and compared the rezoning efforts similarly to what residents in northern Prospect and Crown Heights did after the Atlantic Yards project with their, now city-codified, M-CROWN zoning.

But, Wald said, instead of trying to enforce development standards with spot rezoning and variance requests from developers — which is what Brooklyn's Community Board 8 attempted to do with varied success for years before M-CROWN was endorsed by the city — the board should figure out how to codify future residential land usage now.

Several board members, despite some procedural demurrers, agreed, with one calling the idea "absolutely brilliant."

Wald said he wants the task force to not only explore the feasibility of a potential rezone, but also the procedural process to get it done. And to get it done, fast.

Many of the commercially zoned sites in the neighborhood have been recently developed as super-sized self-storage, like at 424 East 90th Street, and life-science lab developments, like the $325 million lab being built at the birthplace of Yankee legend Lou Gehrig on East 94th Street.

One of the sites Wald and Levine identified, a lot zoned for manufacturing at 221-243 East 94th St. between Second and Third avenues, already has a proposal to build a 46-story residential building nearing pre-certification.

"If we don't soon act, we will miss the opportunity to prevent other sites from being built up with uses that we don't really need, as opposed to the housing that we most desperately need," said CB8 Board Member Craig Lader, who added that he feared that "these sites are going to be eaten up under the current zoning by developers."

"I think this proposal should be the new priority of this committee," Lader said. "It's a win-win-win. And I struggle to think of any valid reason that city planning wouldn't be anxious to partner with us and work with us on this."