Land Use

Kersh said that the group, which has filed paperwork with the city to rezone the area, plans to meet again with City Planning.

Several elected officials, including City Councilman Ben Kallos and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, have joined their push for the rezoning.

It’s the latest trouble for Bauhouse, which last month declared bankruptcy. The company did not respond to an email for comment.

Community Board 6 has thrown its support behind a rezoning proposal aimed at stopping the construction of skyscrapers in Sutton Place.

CB 6 voted nearly unanimously earlier this month to support a community-fundedrezoning application that would limit the height of all new towers, east of First Avenue, from East 52nd to East 59th streets, to 260 feet, or 25 stories.

"The market is turning," Greenberg, Gamma’s attorney, said, urging the court to disallow an injunction that would delay its efforts to take back the properties. "More importantly, there was a press release only last month by the Manhattan borough president, signed by a state senator and City Council members, that they would seek to change the zoning of the site and cut the height from 1,000 feet to 260 feet. Right now we’re exposed."

The proposal would protect neighborhood aesthetics with height caps on new developments and provide additional benefits to affected communities.  On January 21, 2016, the Department of City Planning received a zoning proposal from the East River Fifties Alliance, a neighborhood coalition led by City Council members Ben Kallos and Daniel Garodnick, which is the most comprehensive residential re-zoning proposal to ever be submitted by a community group. The proposal seeks to safeguard the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan from the construction of skyscrapers.  Council members Kallos and Garodnick, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and New York State Senator Liz Krueger are also co-applicants on the proposal, which can be found here.

If passed, the new zone would cover East 52nd Street to East 59th Street from First Avenue to the East River. The plan is a direct response, said Councilmember Ben Kallos, to a skyscraper currently in development on East 59th Street between First Avenue and Sutton Place. The development, which was first reported by this newspaper last April, is as-of-right and is being driven by the Bauhouse Group.

“We are racing the clock, but I would warn any investor that this is a poor investment,” said Councilman Ben Kallos, one of the applicants on the rezoning proposal filed with the city planning department. “This neighborhood will rezone before this building can go up. I’m so tired of people saying that ‘as of right’ means the community can do nothing.”

A group of Sutton Place residents and politicians have filed plans for a rezoning drafted by urban planners that would block the development of supertall towers in that area of town. The East River Fifties Alliance has formally submitted their plan for a rezoning of the area bounded by First Avenue and the East River between 52nd and 59th streets to the Department of City Planning. The rezoning text is an effort between bigwigs like Senator Liz Krueger, City Councilmen Ben Kallos and Daniel Garodnick, Borough President Gale Brewer, and community stakeholders to thwart the encroachment of tall towers, like the 900-foot development Bauhouse Group has planned for East 58th Street between First Avenue and Sutton Place, on the neighborhood. "We are drawing a line on the march of superscrapers at billionaire's row to protect our city's residential neighborhoods," Kallos said in a statement.

East Side pols filed a zoning plan Thursday to block super-tall towers from rising in the neighborhood around Sutton Place. The application would cap buildings from 52nd St. to 59th St. east of First Ave. at no more than 260 feet. "We are drawing a line on the march of superscrapers at billionaire's row to protect our city's residential neighborhoods," said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), who submitted the plan along with Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan), Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan).

The group submitted the plan with co-signers including Borough President Gale Brewer and councilmen Ben Kallos and Dan Garodnick — all of whom would have to sign off on the rezoning if it were to pass a land-use review process — and State Senator Liz Krueger.

The rezoning application came as a direct response to the planned Bauhouse tower, with the East River 50s Alliance going door to door to raise money to hire planners and lawyers in order to make the application airtight and guide it through the review process.

Although demolition has already started at the site of the East 58th Street tower, building permits have yet to be filed, city records show. According to critics the firm is still struggling to finance the project, and Kallos said the rezoning effort could stop it in its tracks.

“Anyone who is thinking of investing in this place would walk away from the deal,” Kallos said. “If Bauhouse didn’t believe us before, the proof is here, and we will succeed.”

“Billionaire’s Row keeps growing and we are drawing the line at a residential neighborhood,” said City Councilman Benjamin Kallos, who represents the neighborhood and backs the plan, which was delivered to the Department of City Planning.