Last year Mayor Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan to seize 61 acres of the Willets Point district next to the forthcoming Citi Field in Queens through eminent domain, raze it, and construct 5,500 units of housing, a hotel, convention center and over 2 million square feet of office space, restaurants and retail shops. But business owners in the target zone have been fighting it, saying their ‘hood, dubbed the Iron Triangle for its chop......

Photo: Food of the Future The East Williamsburg Moore Street Retail Market is one of four remaining city-run public markets built during the tail end of the Depression; opened by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1941, the Brooklyn market was created to clear the streets of unhygienic peddlers and monitor the scales for customers. Today the market is occupied by 13 vendors selling mostly tropical produce, roots and other ethnic foods to the local......

A state judge has shot down Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to rent sports fields on Randalls Island to private schools because the administration failed to follow the legally required land-use review process when it made the deal. The plan was for private schools to pay $2.6 million a year for the next two decades in exchange for use of the renovated fields during peak hours from 3pm to 6pm. The Parks Department had agreed to contribute......

Earlier this year, Mayor Bloomberg announced a major plan to transform Willets Point, the area, also known as the Iron Triangle, across from Shea Stadium, into a thriving area of new housing, business and hotels. However, some are pretty unhappy with the plans, which include replacing 250 businesses, and they've channeled their hopes - and a fair amount of money - to City Council member Melinda Katz. The Post reports Katz received $29,500 from "people......

On the heels of its land use committee's vote last week, Community Board 9, which represents West Harlem, voted to oppose Columbia's ambitious plans to develop a 17-acre area in West Harlem. However, as the Columbia Daily Spectator explains, CB9 did offer "ten specific conditions" that Columbia must agree to before the community board will give their approval. While the conditions include withdrawal of eminent domain and the creation of affordable apartments, Columbia views the......

It's a mixed bag for Columbia today. The school was probably happy to find out that it ranked 9th in U.S News & World Report's latest top college ranking issues, but it's no fun to learn that its billion-dollar Manhattanville project was rejected by a community board committee. IvyGate got a hold of the embargoed "Annual Ranking of Best National Universities" information and found that Columbia ranks ahead of Dartmouth (#11), Cornell (12), and......

A no parking sign? A fire hydrant? Mere street dressing when it comes to drivers with a DOT-issued Department of City Planning placard. Streetsblog observes that a yellow Porsche convertible parked on Seventh Avenue belongs to City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams. Hello, Dolly indeed. Streetsblog notes that Williams, Brooklyn's sole representative on the planning commission, "has been barred from participating in Kings County's most important recent land use processes." For instance, she can't attend Atlantic......

As we mentioned, City Councilman Charles Barron held his press conference yesterday to announce his candidacy for the 2009 Brooklyn Borough Presidency. He told the crowds that his platform included affordable housing, health care accessibility, more jobs, standing up to developers who use eminent domain, ending mayor control of schools and more would help everyone. "Am I going to be a borough president for all the people? Absolutely. But I'm letting y'all know now, I'm......

The city's Far West Side dreams are at stake as the MTA will auction off the buildings rights to the West Side railyards. The NY Times takes a broad look the 26-acre swath of land where Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff says the Bloomberg administration wants to create the "21st century Rockefeller Center." Well, a Rockefeller Center with many huge buildings, as the article's lede calls the lots "where the Bloomberg administration envisions the equivalent......

Bruce Ratner’s mega-project isn’t only a catalyst for lawsuits. It’s also behind a push to create a historic district in Prospect Heights. “I think with the Atlantic Yards happening, there’s a real urgency to get it designated,” Municipal Art Society fellow Lisa Kersavage told Gothamist. “The development pressures are increasing dramatically.” Last summer, Kersavage began working with the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council to survey the area, known for its nineteenth-century Neo-Grec and Italianate......

The NY Times has a nice profile of Amanda Burden, the influential Department of City Planning commissioner whose policies will shape the city for years to come. Burden boasts a quiet, behind-the-scenes role in development across the five boroughs, including large-scale projects like Ground Zero, the Atlantic Yards (she supported downsizing it) and the High Line. She’s also overseeing the largest planning push since 1961 - so far, City Planning has rezoned approximately 4,500 blocks,......

Public hearings tend to be impassioned and last night's Atlantic Yards gathering was no exception. With three community board hearings held simultaneously in different locales, we opted, sans body armor, for the homey confines of Community Board 6 (where we happen to live). And yet, sitting among a crowd of just 60 in the sterile Long Island College Hospital conference room with pale pink walls, a blank blackboard and a television with AV-style accouterments......

We were intrigued by the deconstruction of the word "blight" in today's New York Times. You've heard the story already, no doubt: Last week, a state environmental impact statement called the area proposed for the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project blighted. There's no legal definiton, writes Nick Confessore, but, like porn, you know it when you see it. Confessore quotes a land-use lawyer who explains that blight equals high crime plus dilapidated buildings, pollution and......

Monitoring the city's job postings can pay off! Luckily, Streetsblog has been doing just that and pieces together how the city is serious about developing "comprehensive transportation and land use strategy for New York City."The first signal came at the beginning of Mayor Bloomberg's second term when DOT Commissioner Iris Weinhall was knocked one rung down the Administration's org chart. She is now reporting directly to Doctoroff. Next, DOT's creative, competent Lower Manhattan Borough Commissioner,......

Check it out! The Mayor Bloomberg, hoping to make Hudson Yards lemonade out of failed Jets Stadium lemons, along with West Side Stadium opponent City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have offered the MTA $500 million for the West Side Railyards. The two officials sent the MTA an "unexpected" offer letter, which has the city paying $300 million for the "Western Rail Yard" (where the Jets Stadium would have been) and $200 million for the Eastern......

"New York might need an extra million or so slices of cake for its 400th birthday party in 2025." Or at least that is what city planners are thinking. Despite already having a record population (8.2 million people, baby!) New York City, unlike most other cities in the Northeast or Midwest, is most definitely getting bigger. And that's a bit of an issue for our city government, see. Not because we can't handle more......

Editor's note: This is the first entry from Calvin Wong, an aspiring land use attorney, New York native, and Scrabble junkie. Today’s NY Times examines the difficulty in balancing the City’s need for additional housing units to accommodate an ever-increasing population, and the preservation of low-density contextual neighborhoods that enhance New York City’s charm. Residents, civic groups and politicians in low-density neighborhoods (mostly in the outer boroughs) want to limit the development and redevelopment of......

Brooklyn community groups descended on City Hall yesterday, to protest the rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and it seems that the City Council is on board, as it "threatened...to scuttle" the Bloomberg plan. The sticking points are that the Bloomberg plan includes a lot of development with a lot of tall buildings, and possibly not enough park space or low income housing. The Bloomberg administration counters that the plan has to be attractive enough for......

As if there weren't enough disagreements over the West Side stadium, the Regional Plan Association, a private planning organization, released a report yesterday saying that the plan to build a new stadium for the Jets should be scrapped. In its place, the RPA suggested the area should be rezoned for high-rise commercial and residential development. Their report also said that the expansion of the Javits Center should proceed as planned and that the stadium would......

The Domino Sugar Plant in Williamsburg has been bought. The NY Times reports that New York Region > Developers Known for Residential Work Buy Domino Sugar Plant on Brooklyn Waterfront" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/nyregion/01sugar.html">developers have not disclosed what the plant will be, but notes that one of the partners, Isaac Katan, is a "Brooklyn developer who has helped gentrify Fourth Avenue in Park Slope", while the other partner, C.P.C. Resources, has experience in rehabilitation of older apartments.......