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Attention EDC: Big Development Projects Don’t Need Parking After All
During the Bloomberg administration, city officials spearheading a giant Lower East Side mixed-use development larded it up with parking above and beyond what's normally allowed in Manhattan. Now, the company in charge of building the project says it's going to go parking-free, and is hosting a public meeting on its plan tonight. This could be a huge victory for Lower East Siders who want more housing but not more traffic and dirtier air, and it should be a lesson for the NYC Economic Development Corporation with far-reaching consequences.
January 28, 2015
Livable Streets or Tall Buildings? Cities Can Have Both
Kaid Benfield's new blog post on density is getting a lot of buzz over at NRDC's Switchboard blog. Benfield, a planner/lawyer/professor/writer who co-founded both LEED's Neighborhood Development rating system and the Smart Growth America coalition, has some serious street cred when it comes to these matters. And on this one, he's with Danish architect Jan Gehl, who says wonderful places are built at human-scale density -- three to six stories.
October 6, 2014
Are There Any Affordable Cities Left in America?
Are Washington, San Francisco, and New York the most affordable American cities? A new report from the New York-based Citizen's Budget Commission [PDF], which made the rounds at the Washington Post and CityLab, argues that if you consider the combined costs of housing and transportation, the answer is yes.
August 27, 2014
Chin Urges Council Colleagues to Turn Parking Into Affordable Housing
Last month, Manhattan City Council Member Margaret Chin asked the de Blasio administration to prioritize affordable housing over car storage by replacing a city-owned parking garage in her district with new apartments. Acknowledging that the decision might be politically difficult, last week Chin urged her City Council colleagues to follow her lead if they want to tackle the city's affordability problem.
August 4, 2014
Chin Asks de Blasio to Choose Affordable Housing Over Cheap Parking
Council Member Margaret Chin has set up a simple choice for Mayor Bill de Blasio: Which is the higher priority, affordable housing or cheap parking?
July 8, 2014
Proposal to Turn Car Storage Into Human Housing Hits Brooklyn CB6 Tonight
Just a reminder that today at 6 p.m., Brooklyn Community Board 6 will hold a public hearing about the conversion of a 230-car garage on Union Street into a mixed-use building with housing and retail.
June 26, 2014
Pew Survey: Liberals Want Walkability, Conservatives Want a Big Lawn
Americans are increasingly sorted along ideological lines. There is less diversity of opinion among the people we associate with, in the media we consume, and even where we want to live. That's according to a new report from Pew Research Center studying political polarization in the United States.
June 13, 2014
Sooner or Later, the Brooklyn-Queens Waterfront Needs Better Transit
The Brooklyn and Queens waterfront is in the midst of a grand transformation that's only just begun. Newly built Brooklyn Bridge Park is already firmly established as one of the city’s most stunning public spaces. The Brooklyn Navy Yard now hosts glitzy fashion shows by international designers like Alexander Wang and Dior. Long Island City’s waterfront is a wall of glassy new condos. Many more changes are coming.
May 22, 2014
De Blasio Housing Plan Meekly Suggests Parking Reform
There's a deep connection between parking policy and housing affordability. The more space New York devotes to car storage, the less space is available to house people. And yet, 50 year old laws mandating the construction of parking in new residential development persist in most of the city, driving up construction costs and hampering the supply of housing.
May 7, 2014
Tulsa’s First Open Streets Event Reimagines Notorious Parking Crater
Typically, no one goes to the southern end of downtown Tulsa to socialize. This part of town has been so overrun with parking lots that Streetsblog readers crowned it the worst "parking crater" in the country in our first Parking Madness competition last year.
May 6, 2014