Development

The City Planning Commission certified Extell Development's parking-filled Riverside Center proposal yesterday afternoon, setting in motion the city's land use review process. Certification is more about completing paperwork than rendering judgment, but the discussion of the proposal did offer a few clues about which aspects of the three-million square foot project are front and center in the minds of planning commissioners.

Are New York City's planning commissioners serious about parking reform? An important test case is shaping up on Manhattan's west side, where Extell Development is trying to build 1,800 parking spaces in an area the size of two city blocks.

City Hall has another big vacancy to fill. This morning the Bloomberg administration announced that Robert Lieber, deputy mayor for economic development, is returning to the private sector. Lieber's portfolio includes the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of City Planning. His departure could create a window of opportunity to fill some of the biggest gaps in the city's sustainability agenda, PlaNYC 2030. 

Reforming New York City parking policy is a critical component of reducing automobile use and building better public spaces. It's becoming increasingly clear that rethinking how we store cars can help address New York City's housing crisis as well. Requiring parking not only creates traffic, it also prevents housing from being built and drives up prices.

In an unusual turn of events, two Brooklyn politicians and one community board are pushing for less off-street parking at the New Domino development proposed for the Williamsburg waterfront. City Council Member Steve Levin and Borough President Marty Markowitz have recently bolstered a resolution from CB 1 calling for hundreds of fewer parking spaces. 

The key to building better and more affordable housing in New York City is that oft-cited but elusive quality: urbanism. So said a panel of housing policy experts and real estate developers at Friday's RPA regional assembly.

Yesterday, Streetsblog looked at Flushing Commons, a mixed-use development in the heart of transit-rich downtown Flushing, where the New York City Economic Development Corporation has mandated suburban levels of parking. We asked the EDC why they required nearly 1,600 spaces in the development, and now we have an answer. It's a revealing look at how the city has relinquished its responsibility to set a coordinated parking policy, much less one in line with the goals of PlaNYC 2030.

It's not every day that a New York City real estate executive name-checks Donald Shoup, but one developer admiringly referred to the dean of progressive parking policy while explaining his project to Streetsblog. If not for the New York City Economic Development Corporation and mis-directed political pressures, says TDC Development President Michael Meyer, the huge mixed-use project he's building at one of the biggest transit hubs in Queens could have made better use of enlightened parking policy. 

Well over a hundred people filled the auditorium of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Church last week for a forum on the future of Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue put on by the Park Slope Civic Council. The stretch of Fourth Avenue on the western edge of Park Slope saw a wave of residential construction after a 2003 rezoning, but walking there still feels akin to navigating the shoulder of a highway. The new buildings and promises of a grand boulevard have raised expectations for the street, however, and the Brooklyn Paper reports that the forum conveyed a clear public desire for traffic calming and additional pedestrian space.