Hudson Yards Rezoning Wins Panel Approval

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The New York Sun

The City Planning Commission approved the rezoning of the Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side yesterday, advancing the zoning changes to their final hurdle, the City Council, in January.


The 59-block rezoning, which would allow the creation of 13,600 new residential units, 2,600 of them affordable, and 2 million square feet of commercial office space, passed on a vote of 10 to 1.


It is rare that the commission fails to vote unanimously. Commissioner Karen Phillips, who was appointed by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, was the lone dissenter. She cited the lack of public review for the proposed football stadium for the New York Jets, which is not part of the rezoning plan, and the need for more affordable housing as among her reasons for not supporting the rezoning.


“The stadium would be a huge facility. It is like a sitting elephant, and it circumvents the full public review process, which is a mistake,” Ms. Phillips told The New York Sun.


The proposed Jets stadium, formally known as the New York Sports and Convention Center, is not part of the public review process because it is to be built on state-owned land.


Following Ms. Phillips’s testimony, opponents of the Hudson Yards rezoning disrupted the commission’s proceedings with signs and shouts, including one protester wearing a tuxedo who hollered, “Billionaires for Bloomberg.”


Despite the commotion, spirits among City Planning officials, who had been working on the rezoning for five years, were high.


“I am thrilled by the resounding endorsement by the commission,” said the planning department’s Manhattan borough director, Vishaan Chakravarti.


“Given Gifford Miller’s comments and those of the Manhattan Borough Board’s, we’re in very good shape for the plan to pass the City Council,” he said. Mr. Miller, the City Council speaker, said last week he favored the rezoning but had major reservations about the financing of the proposed stadium.


The Hudson Yards rezoning runs from West 30th Street to West 43rd Street, and from Seventh and Eighth avenues to 12th Avenue. It includes a zoning bonus for developers who build theaters on the ground floors of their buildings on the western portion of 42nd Street, and a pedestrian passageway on 32nd Street linking the new Moynihan Station with a 6-acre park on 11th Avenue.


The rezoning plan has undergone some alterations since it was first introduced, including a change earlier this month to institute inclusionary zoning in the area. That will mean developers can erect larger buildings in return for constructing affordable housing units. It will generate 500 more affordable-housing units than the city had first planned, city officials said.


“This is the most ambitious plan since the grid plan of 1811 that laid out the Island of Manhattan,” said the commissioner of city planning, Amanda Burden. “This comprehensive and far-reaching Hudson Yards plan is essential to securing New York City’s future.” In particular, she hailed “the close involvement of the many stakeholders in the review process.”


Opposition groups expected the passage of the plan but still hope to see it amended before the council votes on it.


“Although today’s vote was expected, we are disappointed that the City Planning Commission has approved the Hudson Yards plan in its present form,” a spokesman for the opposition group Hell’s Kitchen/Hudson Yards Alliance, John Raskin, said in a statement. “As the plan moves forward to the City Council, we will continue to fight to fix its serious problems: the excessive density of development, lack of affordable housing, questionable financing plan, and unnecessary condemnation of residents and businesses.”


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