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Neighbors Claim 'Coup' In Zoning Battle Residents of northern Tribeca, backed by Community Board 1 and City Councilman Alan Gerson, forced a developer last month to scale back a rezoning proposal that will allow the construction of taller, bulkier buildings along a stretch of Hudson River waterfront. The developer also agreed to reduce the amount of ground-floor retail space allowed there, in essence shutting out so-called “big box” stores. The deal was made during several days of negotiations between community representatives and the Jack Parker Corporation, which was seeking approval from the City Council to rezone four blocks of northern Tribeca bordered by Watts, Hubert, West and Washington Streets. A compromise was reached shortly before the Council was to vote on the rezoning proposal on Aug. 16. The Jack Parker group had proposed a zoning change that would have allowed towers up to 160 feet tall facing West Street and up to 120 feet tall on the Washington Street side of the blocks. The plan also would have allowed ground-floor retail spaces of up to 20,000 square feet in the rezoned area. The proposal was negotiated down to a scale that neighborhood representatives said they could live with, and was approved by the City Council last month. The changes included: • The maximum height for buildings on West Street was reduced from the proposed 160 feet to 140 feet. • Building heights on Washington Street were capped at 110 feet, a reduction of 10 feet from the Parker plan. • The maximum street wall height (the height of a building facade before a setback) throughout the rezoned area was reduced from 85 feet to 65 feet. • The maximum size for ground-floor retail spaces was cut to 10,000 square feet. The reduction from the proposed 20,000 square feet represented an effort by the community to exclude “big box” stores. Andy Neale, a resident of the neighborhood and a community board member,who was at the table during the negotiations, said the decision to negotiate with the developer was made when it appeared that the City Council might approve Parker’s proposal. The plan had the approval of the city’s Department of City Planning and the support of Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “Even though there was massive community opposition, we couldn’t be 100 percent sure” that the Council would reject the proposal, Neale said. “Going to a vote would have been a gamble.” The compromise put an end to more than a year of strategy sessions and hand-wringing among residents’ groups and the community board. In what they dubbed their “Stop the Wall” campaign, the groups opposed the rezoning plan largely because taller buildings in the low-rise area would block light and air in the neighborhood. Another point of contention was that the Parker group had not conducted an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for the project. An EIS would show the impact of the rezoning on the neighborhood, including the effects of additional vehicle traffic in an area already congested with commuter cars making their way to the Holland Tunnel. The deal included assurances from the City Planning Department that an EIS will be attached to a forthcoming rezoning plan for the entire northern Tribeca neighborhood, and that the Parker group will cooperate with the study. Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1, called the compromise a “tremendous victory for the community.” “We will not stand by and let someone spot rezone a neighborhood,” she said. “Obviously we had hoped to get more,” said William Wallerstein, vice president of the Jack Parker Corporation. “But we feel like this was a fair negotiation.” At public hearings during the review process for the rezoning, Wallerstein characterized opposition to the plan as a “small, vocal group of residents that take the position that any change is bad.” “And they were influential,” he said following the negotiations. Carol De Saram, a neighborhood activist, called the compromise a “coup” for the community. She is on the community board’s Tribeca Committee and leads the Tribeca Community Association, which threatened to take legal action if the rezoning plan, as originally proposed by Parker, went forward. “We had swords sharpened, our troops in line and our documentation ready,” she said. “We were ready to file with the courts within 24 hours.” That appears unnecessary, she said, for now. “Let’s put it this way. If anybody screws around with this, then all bets are off," she said.
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