NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration is taking steps to cut down on the development trend of building large mechanical voids in high-rise towers after neighborhood preservation groups and elected officials sounded the alarm on the practice.
After pushback from the Upper West Side community and elected officials, the City Planning Commission announced Monday it will be reviewing a text amendment to limit voids: non-residential spaces in residential buildings created to augment the height of a building.
The de Blasio administration is accelerating plans to tighten a loophole that allows developers to boost the height of luxury apartment buildings, according to multiple sources. A tower on the Upper East Side proposed by Extell Development Co. is directly in regulators' cross-hairs.
Amazon responde
Funcionarios electos como el contralor Scott Stringer, la expresidenta del Concejo Municipal y candidata a la Defensoría del Pueblo Melissa Mark Viverito, y los concejales Jimmy Van Bramer, Brad Lander, Ben Kallos y Jumaane Williams también se unieron al movimiento que se trasladó al interior de la edificación, donde visiblemente molesto, Corey Johnson, presidente del Concejo Municipal dio inició a la primera de tres audiencias públicas programadas.
Numerous speakers also blasted the inclusion of a helipad in the construction of the campus, which was held up as a totem of what they saw as Bezos’ elite attitude, refusal to ride the subway, or spend a second longer in Queens than he might have to. City Council Member Ben Kallos of the Upper East Side went as far as comparing Bezos to a Bond villain.
Kallos was also the only speaker of the bunch to bring up a letter that he and many other lawmakers (including rally leader Van Bramer and Queens state Senator Mike Gianaris) signed last year asking Amazon to explore moving to New York City, an awkward juxtaposition with the day’s anti-Amazon sentiment. “A lot of us did sign a letter saying we wanted to have a conversation with Amazon, and I’ll be the first to say talking to tech companies is a good thing,” Kallos explained. “But we didn’t sign on the dotted line that we were signing away our tax dollars. They’re taking $3 billion out of your pockets and none of us get a say in that.
The city also agreed to facilitate construction of a new helipad on the site for Amazon executives. The Manhattan city councilman Ben Kallos said the arrangement made Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, look like a “Bond villain”.
“The governor and the mayor have decided to throw Jeff Bezos almost $3bn in subsidies and tax breaks – and throw in a helipad so he doesn’t have to take the damn 7 train,” said city councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents Long Island City. “He wants this helipad so he doesn’t actually really have to spend any time in Queens.”
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Addressed to Bezos — whom one of its signatories, Councilman Ben Kallos, compared to a "Bond villain" on Wednesday — the letter stated officials' belief that "Amazon will be a strong contributor to our civic and commercial life."
Gianaris, who signed the letter, said the officials thought the jobs stemming from the project would be good, but "never contemplated that public dollars would be secretly given to Amazon to get them here."
Another popular grievance among the speakers at the rally was the state-funded helipad in Queens that New York has promised Bezos. "He's going to have a helicopter pad. It's like a Bond villain," Councilmember Ben Kallos said. Kallos' district includes Roosevelt Island, which sits adjacent to Long Island City, just one subway stop away. "Residents on Roosevelt Island are scared to death about what Amazon will bring," he said.
As The KCP Investigation continues into the city’s taking of fully paid off properties through the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD), Third Party Transfer (TPT) program, KCP has been busy chasing down a number of of leads in trying to unravel the complex role of the government’s involvement. What follows is a few of these odds, ends and false leads with a brief explanation:
FALSE LEAD: 2017 CITY LEGISLATION PROMPTED THE FORECLOSURES
In 2017, the coalition Stand For Tenant Safety (STS) along with the City Council’s Progressive Caucus put together a legislative package of 11 bills, which passed the Council in August of that year.
Among these bills was City Council Member Ben Kallos‘ (D-Manhattan) bill, Intro. 0930, which expands HPD’s (TPT) program, allowing the city to foreclose and sell distressed residential buildings to pre-qualified third parties, and to include buildings whose owners have incurred large amounts of unsatisfied building violations.
The bill, although expanding the definition of “distressed” property, had nothing to do the seizure of more than 60 properties across Central Brooklyn in a single foreclosure judgement last September. The legislation does not go into effect until 2019, and even if it was in effect, would unlikely include the properties featured in KCP’s investigative series as these properties do not have the type of building violations detailed in the bill.
To the relief of an Upper East Side community group, Gamma Real Estate’s tower won’t violate new zoning rules until at least next year. But there’s no guarantee that the developer won’t build beyond that.
