City, Landmarks Looking To Rezone Part of West Village

The Department of City Planning and the Landmarks Preservation Commission are planning to issue proposals next month that will call for the down-zoning and landmark designation of parts of the West Village.The proposals, which are to be released concurrently, cover the neighborhood from Jane to Barrow streets, between Washington and West streets.“We are working on a balanced proposal so that new developments are consistent and respect the character of the neighborhood,” the City Planning official overseeing the rezoning, Jeffrey Mulligan, said. “The plan reduces the density in some areas and also retains consistent density in others.”The department is overseeing the rezoning, while the landmarks commission is working to designate as historic some of the buildings, Mr. Mulligan said, adding that the agencies were “shooting to release the plans in June.”A spokeswoman for the commission, Diane Jackier, said the panel was “still evaluating” its proposal. She did not comment further.Two streets to be down-zoned, where limits would be placed on the height and density of new developments, are Weehawken Street and Charles Lane, according to the zoning chairman of Community Board 2, David Reck.The Far West Village “is a mishmash of small zoning districts, and this plan will make it a bit more coherent,” Mr. Reck said. He has seen City Planning’s preliminary proposal.The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which has spearheaded the rezoning and landmarks effort, submitted a plan to the landmarks commission last September, calling for the designation of a historic district between Horatio and Barrow streets, west of Washington and Greenwich streets.“We are pushing the city every day to move ahead with the landmarking and the down-zoning as soon, and as comprehensively, as possible,” the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society, Andrew Berman, said.The group, which held a march last weekend to push for its plan, has zeroed in on several structures that it said should be designated as landmarks. Included is a wood-frame house from 1849 at 6 Weehawken St., designed by a boatbuilder. The ground floor had an oyster bar – a popular enterprise along the Hudson River waterfront in 19th-century New York.Other sites include factories, seamen’s hotels, and tenement buildings that were once part of the maritime life of the Far West Side.While preservationists touted next month’s moves as hard-won victories in a battle to safeguard a historic neighborhood, others said the city’s plans would limit an already tight housing market.A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who has written extensively on the city’s real estate, Julia Vitullo Martin, said a down-zoning would prevent the development of much-needed market-rate housing.“We are building subsidized housing in areas like the Brooklyn waterfront, where people would pay top dollar for apartments, and at the same time preventing the development of market-rate housing elsewhere,” she said. “With 750,000 new city residents since 1990, and another 1.5 million expected to come, where are they supposed to live?”The City Planning proposal does not call for the down-zoning of the hotly contested site of the Whitehall Storage warehouse on Charles Street. There, the Witkoff Group and Lehman Brothers are planning to build a 17-story, 250,000-square-foot residential condominium.Current zoning allows for a 32-story building at the site, but the developers have said they would limit the height and density to fit in the context of the neighborhood.The president of the Witkoff Group, Steve Witkoff, who is also converting the Woolworth Building across from City Hall and the Regency Hotel at 55 Wall St. into condominiums, did not return calls for comment.“The developer has been meeting with the community on this project,” City Planning’s Mr. Mulligan said, “and we have seen what the building looks like and are confident that what they are developing is sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood.”

City, Landmarks Looking To Rezone Part of West Village

City, Landmarks Looking To Rezone Part of West Village

More from the New York Sun

Treating Trauma While Living Through It, Israeli Therapists Help October 7 Survivors

Thousands on the March in Pakistan Demanding Release of Jailed Former Prime Minister and Cricket Star Imran Khan

Pervasive Pessimism Plagues Americans, Even Though Prosperity Is on the March

‘Digital Bombardment’ Via Smart Phones and Social Media Threatens a Post-Literate ‘New Dark Ages’

‘We Had No Warning’: Biden’s Former Middle East Adviser Backs Netanyahu Over October 7

Susan Collins, Troy Jackson Clash at Heated Maine Senate Debate Over Corruption, Effectiveness

Democrats’ Lynch-Law Justice Comes for Accused Cornell Fraternity Men

Tucker Carlson: ‘Apologist for Adolf Hitler’

More from the New York Sun

Treating Trauma While Living Through It, Israeli Therapists Help October 7 Survivors

Thousands on the March in Pakistan Demanding Release of Jailed Former Prime Minister and Cricket Star Imran Khan

Pervasive Pessimism Plagues Americans, Even Though Prosperity Is on the March

‘Digital Bombardment’ Via Smart Phones and Social Media Threatens a Post-Literate ‘New Dark Ages’

‘We Had No Warning’: Biden’s Former Middle East Adviser Backs Netanyahu Over October 7

Susan Collins, Troy Jackson Clash at Heated Maine Senate Debate Over Corruption, Effectiveness

Democrats’ Lynch-Law Justice Comes for Accused Cornell Fraternity Men

Tucker Carlson: ‘Apologist for Adolf Hitler’