On Tuesday, a key City Council committee agreed on a rezoning plan for Harlem. The Zoning and Franchises Subcommitee voted 10 to 1 on a proposal that includes, the NY Times reports, limiting new building height to 19 stories (originally it was 29), creating a loan program for displaced small businesses, and $5.8 million to improve Marcus Garvey Park. Additionally, 46% of new housing units will be "income-targeted," to provide more affordable housing--an amount that......

Photographs of the Bedell House, clockwise from upper left: Normal-looking in 2005 (from Tottenville Historical Society), covered in graffiti in 2005 (from Tottenville Historical Society), and boarded-up in 2008 (from Staten Island Advance) A landmark Tottenville home that caused a bitter fight between its owner and neighbors has entered a new stage of its existence: foreclosure proceedings. The Staten Island Advance reports John Grossi, who bought the 1869 Bedell House in hopes of razing......

Michael Lappin, CEO of the managing company for what is being called the "New Domino", responded yesterday to our questions about the proposed project via email. The iconic Domino Sugar sign is not included in these renderings. [We photoshopped it back in, above.] Is there any plan to preserve that somewhere at the site? We are making every effort to save the sign. We are looking at different engineering solutions regarding the “where and......

Bless the Daily News for suggesting that Coney Island institution Nathan's Famous might become a "towering wiener wonderland with clubs, stores and hotel rooms," thanks for a provision in Coney Island development plans. We now dream of living in a building shaped like a hot dog, complete with relish-stucco exterior - and we'd hope our fellow tenants would be Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi and that there would be room service from Nathan's. Anyway, back......

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......

Take a good, long look New York: You could be staring into the squinty eyes of your future mayor. (Yes, the white dude on the right.) Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who describes himself as “somewhat comical” [emphasis added] is on the verge of announcing his candidacy for mayor. Fuhgeddaboutit? The Crown Heights native, who earned a B.A. at Brooklyn College after nine years of night school, has loudly occupied the largely ceremonial position......

A rendering of Brooklyn's proposed City Tech Tower, designed by Renzo Piano, at Tillary and and Jay Street sent some into speculation mode, especially since its height seemed to be up to 1,000 feet tall. Which would make just about twice the height of the 512-foot tall Williamsburgh Savings Bank, currently the tallest building the Brooklyn. However, the rendering of the building is apparently old. A representative at Forest City Ratner, the development company which......

The old saw is that one can't fight City Hall, and we can apparently add the ivory tower to the bulwarks of imperviousness. Despite fierce community opposition, Columbia University will be expanding its upper-Manhattan campus to surrounding blocks. The plan to expand the university's property by 17 acres and several blocks in each direction was approved this afternoon by the New York City Planning Commission. CityRoom reports the neighborhood meeting wasn't exactly neighborly:A majority......

Six anonymous students at Columbia University have gone on a hunger strike to protest the administration's attitude and position on a number of issues, including Columbia's plans for West Harlem/Manhatanville, a series of hate crimes on campus and lack of an ethnic studies program. You can see the full list of demands at the strikers website, as well as explanations for questions like "Why now?"The recent acts of hate on this campus have lent urgency......

Yesterday morning, around 7AM, Queens resident Hope Miller was fatally hit by a truck turning right onto Houston Street from 6th Avenue. The driver, Roger Smiley, was fleeing the scene of an accident at Prince and 6th Avenue. Miller had been crossing Houston Street, near a construction site. 1010 WINS reported that the impact "knocked her out of her shoes." Smiley was arrested and charged with "leaving the scene of an accident, driving under the......

Yesterday, developer Sheldon Solow's ambitious plans to redefine the East River skyline were examined in the Sun, as he is presenting the plans to a Community Board today. Solow proposes to build six towers south of the United Nations along the East River, with over 5 million square feet of residential, commercial and retail space. So far, some residents and officials have met with Solow and his company, East River Realty, but one community......

Elected officials, including U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, are speaking out against the proposed expansion of Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus, directly south of the performing arts complex. The school wants to add 1.5 million square feet of building space to the midtown campus, which includes an undergraduate college and its law school, between Columbus and Amsterdam Aves., nearly tripling the complex's size from the current 800,000 square feet. Fordam gets to avoid complicated issues......

Plans for a new Penn Station and Madison Square Garden at the historic Farley Post Office building remain as murky as ever. But a recent poll undertaken by the Municipal Art Society (MAS) suggests that Penn Station commuters overwhelmingly favor the prospect of a grand new train station--but they need more information. If and when the project proceeds, who will keep watch over the three mega-developers (the state-run ESDC, along with private companies Related Group......

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......

After the Daily News broke news that the city was unhappy with developer Thor Equities' $1.5 billion plan to revitalize Coney Island (an anonymous city official calling the plan "dead in the water"), the Post gets its own tidbit. Apparently Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff is offering to swap some land with Thor to keep Thor in the general Coney Island mix, but not right on Stillwell Avenue. Under Doctoroff's compromise, Sitt would give the city......

In 2004, we believed that the Domino Sugar Factory would make for a great museum, à la the Tate Modern. Today the NY Sun reports that a group of Brooklyn artists are calling on the Community Preservation Corporation Resources development company "to change its plans for the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, pushing for the creation of a cultural complex similar to London's Tate Modern art museum." Currently the developer plans on turning the factory......

Streetsblog took a look at the Department of City Planning's annual bicycle survey and dug up this map of cyclists by zip code as well as these highlights:- For Bicycle Commuters: 44% start in Manhattan and 41% start in Brooklyn; 81% end in Manhattan and 10% end in Brooklyn. - At the work place: 52% park and lock their bikes outdoors, 48% indoors. - The average commute time for cyclists is 35 minutes. -......

A woman used to have to move to Alaska to find herself the center of attention of an overwhelmingly male population; now she just has to move south of Chambers St. According to an article in the New York Times, residential development of lower Manhattan and a booming financial sector economy have resulted in a population that is heavily skewed towards men.Since 2000, men, mostly between ages 25 and 44, have accounted for more than......

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,......

+ Following the release of the Atlantic Yards' Final Environmental Impact Statement, Empire State Development Corporation head Charles Gargano says Madison Square Garden owners Jim and Charles Dolan may end up killing the Gehry-designed project. More FEIS digesting from Curbed. + Eero Saarinen's former TWA terminal is empty and the Port Authority is soliciting requests for proposals. To the dismay of a Municipal Art Society VIP. Check out the audio slide show. + The 1879......

Heckling (followed by civility) was alive and well at last night's Community Board 3 meeting at Cooper Union. Wearing "Please IMPROVE the Plan!" stickers, East Village and Lower East Side residents interrupted Department of City Planning Commissioner representatives as they presented a plan for the area's first rezoning since 1961 ("Define affordable," shouted one audience member - $56,000 for a family of four, in case you're wondering, and, no, they didn't have numbers for......

The overwhelming amount of development in Williamsburg and Greenpoint development gets a NY Times write-up today. Not only are residents are getting evicted or priced out of their apartments, construction has been damaging adjoining buildings. Which makes area residents wonder if the Department of Buildings can handle overseeing all the new construction.Last year, the department issued 24,610 permits in Brooklyn, including 1,924 for demolition and 1,740 permits for new buildings. That was roughly double the......

The City Planning Commission has spoken and says the Atlantic Yards Project should be reduced by 8%. This is only a "recommendation," but since the project's developer the Forest City Ratner had been considering a 6-8% downsizing, given all the public outcry, this seems like something the group may well do. Especially since the City Planning Commission "raved," the Post puts it, about the tallest skyscraper in the group, Frank Gehry's "Miss Brooklyn" structure that......

We've always been well aware that neighborhoods are a tricky thing to define - growing up we were never really clear if we lived in the East Village, NoHo or the Lower East Side - but this wonderful article by Manny Fernandez in today's Metro section still managed to surprise us with just how hard it can be. Especially in places where the populations have constantly turned over rapidly and dramatically. For instance the......

Willie Neuman points out an interesting conundrum in today's Big Deal (third item). If a developer with a known history of building oversize and then biting the cost in sheer profits comes into your neighborhood and makes a play to build an oversize building there, what do you do? What if the property in question is an enormous pit? That's exactly what has happened in Borough Park where Mendel Brach, a specialist at the......

From what we've seen, NASCAR fans are always passionate - wearing their favorite driver's colors, belittling drivers they dislike, cheering for crashes - but Gothamist has never heard of a fan putting a public official in a headlock. Until now, that is. At last night's public hearing about a proposed racetrack in Staten Island, things got a little heated once City Councilman Andrew Lanza took the stage. According to the Staten Island Advance, a supporter......

The Census Bureau just released a study that shows over 200,000 residents left the NYC area between 2000 and 2004. [You can read the PDF here.] The NYC metro area is represented by NYC, Northern NJ and Long Island; Los Angeles lost about 110,000 people and Chicago had a drop of over 60,000. People are heading south (Florida) and west (Nevada, Arizona...Idaho?), though there are increases in Maine and NH as well. Hmm, will this......

So, uh, Gothamist just had our third birthday, but if you haven't gotten us a present yet we know what we want. We want this. The Department of City Planning's newly updated Zoning Handbbook (only $24! $18 if you order 10 or more - makes great stocking stuffers!). The first update of the Handbook since 1990, the book explains in layman's terms all of the crazy that is our great metropolis's zoning regulations. Plus, it's......

- Cop killer is sentenced to life without parole - New Jersey sues the Bush administration over the port deal; Pataki, get outta bed and work with your legal counsel! - City inspectors busted a slumlord who had racked up 16,696 violations in Queens and the Bronx. - The new Yankee Stadium was approved by the City Planning Commission - According to the Crain's New York poll, 51% of people online-polled would not want......

That closet-size studio you looked at last week isn’t the only outrageously priced real estate in New York. The Zeckendorf brothers, the developers of the pyramid-topped towers on Union Square East, have agreed to pay $450 a square foot for air rights along Manhattan’s prestigious Park Avenue. The deal will allow the transfer of air rights from the Christ Church and the Grolier Club at Park Avenue and East 60th Street to the construction of......