NYU Scoping Revised (Zipper Bldg)
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May 24, 2011 Mr. Robert Dobruskin, AICP, Director Environmental Assessment and Review Division NYC Department of City Planning 22 Reade Street, Room 4E New York, New York 10007-1216 RE: NYU Core CEQR No. 11DCP121M Comments on Draft Scope of Work Dear Mr. Dobruskin: Community Board No. 2, Manhattan (“CB2”), at its May 19, 2011 Full Board meeting, voted approval of the following testimony to be submitted to the New York City Department of City Planning at its May 24, 2011, Public Scoping Hearing for the above project. New York University (“NYU”) has anticipated a significant expansion of its facilities and holdings in our community district for over six years. CB2 held numerous public meetings with the University to learn about their stated needs, and offered, along with members of the community, meaningful input as to concerns about the appropriateness of the proposed development and potential impacts. In 2006, CB2 joined representatives from NYU, local elected officials, other community boards, and community groups in the Community Task Force on NYU Development (“Task Force”), convened by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. The Task Force developed a set of unanimously accepted Planning Principles (attached as Appendix A), which were based on a premise first articulated by NYU President John Sexton in 2004, that Greenwich Village is a “fragile ecosystem” and the University must not overwhelm the historic neighborhood that is their home campus. The Task Force met for over three years and made many specific recommendations about urban design, quality of life, sustainability, community planning process and accountability. Page 1 In July 2010, CB2 began its own review process of NYU Plan 2031. Since that time, we have hosted eight public hearings and forums, and two public working meetings, in addition to receiving testimony from many hundreds of people about the University’s proposals. This document derives from a careful consideration of this extensive input. We understand that NYU makes an important contribution to the economy and status of New York City, and that they want to grow in order to maintain their status as a premier institution of higher learning and internationally respected research. However, this is the largest development project to ever come before CB2, and the overwhelming reaction from our board and the community has been that NYU’s proposal to add two and a half million square feet of new academic, dormitory, residential, retail and hotel uses in the heart of Greenwich Village, will forever change the character of this iconic neighborhood. Our comments here are limited to the scope of study for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (“DEIS”), to be prepared in advance of certification of a Uniform Land Use Review Process (“ULURP”). We begin with general comments and concerns about the actions being proposed, and then follow with specific requests for further study in each of the nineteen categories of potential impacts in the Project Area, as outlined in the NYC CEQR Technical Manual, and then end with a consideration of alternatives. I. CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT New York University has been a part of Greenwich Village since their founding in 1831. The University moved to the Bronx in the early decades of the 20th Century, but began a return to the neighborhood after World War II. In the 1960’s they acquired the property between Mercer Street and La Guardia Place, West 3rd and Houston Streets, the “Proposed Development Area,” with zoning and deed restrictions that defined these blocks as residential, and made subsequent agreements to become the stewards of the auxiliary open spaces. In the 1970’s, NYU decided to make the Washington Square area its main campus, and started an aggressive campaign to buy properties in the Washington Square Park “core.” Over the years, this has led to increasingly strained community/university relations. Long time residents of what was once a vibrant, diversified neighborhood feel as if they live on a college campus. Further, NYU has enlarged and modified many of the existing buildings, designed new buildings that are not in keeping with the historic quality of the area, taken over and then neglected public space, and ignored the damaging impact of incessant construction on the quality of life for residents and businesses. Currently the University owns or leases 10.8 million sf of space in the immediate Washington Square neighborhood. This proposal seeks to increase their dominance by another 25%. More alarming still is that all of the increase occurs in two residential superblocks, currently housing approximately 2000 families. Not only will these superblocks be asked to absorb two million sf in above-ground development, they will see the addition of an estimated 1400 dormitory students, 260 faculty families, 150 transient hotel rooms, up to 800 public school children, and the thousands of visitors associated with a conference center, an expanded gym facility and over a million square feet of new academic space. All of these new uses come at the cost of losing open space, light and air, historic view corridors and quality of life issues associated with increased noise, congestion and pollution. The prospect of a delicately balanced, stable neighborhood that is largely residential, intimate in character, and historical in context, being overwhelmed by the proposed influx of exceptionally tall, bulky buildings, additional and augmented campus uses, and swelled populations makes it essential that we carefully evaluate all of the potential impacts of this project. Page 2 II. GENERAL COMMENTS In order to facilitate the increased bulk and density, and new uses that NYU is requesting in the Project Area (comprised of a Proposed Development Area and a Commercial Overlay Area), the city must approve a series of discretionary actions. It is important to evaluate these requests in the context of the University’s stated goals. NYU says that it has grown precipitously in the period from 1990 to 2005, and that their “facilities are severely overburdened.” Their goal is to ‘de-compress’ the strain on services in the Washington Square campus by embarking on a program of “serious upgrade(s) and improvement(s) in facilities” in order to sustain the quality of its educational offerings. Three actions help to facilitate this goal. 1. Change in Zoning in Proposed Development Area The plan calls for a blanket re-zoning of the Proposed Development Area from R7-2 to C1-7. Our community is generally comprised of low-scale and low-density neighborhoods, and the existing R7-2 designation is one of the largest zoning envelopes in our district. The height and bulk allowed by a C1-7 (an R8 equivalent) zoning may be appropriate in midtown or downtown, but not in the historic core of Greenwich Village. Further, most of the uses being proposed in this area are allowable under the community facility bonus, and we have not heard an adequate explanation as to why their goals could not be accomplished with targeted commercial overlays. A hotel is a possible exception, but we are not convinced that a hotel is central component to the stated goal of ‘decompressing’ the core in order to maintain academic excellence. 2. Large Scale General Development Special Permit The plan also calls for dissolving the current Large Scale Residential Development (LSRD) on the southern superblock in the Proposed Development Area, and replacing it with a Large Scale General Development Special Permit (LSGD) that covers both the northern and southern superblock. We have not been able to determine from the Draft Scope the purpose of the LSGD, so it is difficult to comment. The plans are undefined and vague, and sorely lacking in specific detail, so how can we responsibly evaluate the impact of the entire project? We are especially concerned that the boundaries have not yet been determined, that the area covered is too large, and that the development would take place in two distinct phases over twenty years. 3. Deed Restrictions The two superblocks in the Proposed Development Area were created under the Title I, Urban Renewal program to provide quality housing for the neighborhood. The plan specified the amount of land that could be covered by buildings, with the understanding that the remaining open space would compensate for the height of the buildings. Because of significant amendments to the plans, the Deed Restrictions are now set to expire 10 years from now, in 2021. Accelerating massive development violates the expectations of the residents and businesses in the area, who have made lifestyle and financial choices based on the terms of these restrictions. NYU also cites that “enhanc[ing] public recreational opportunities in the Proposed Development Area” is an another goal of the project. They claim that there will be a “net increase in the amount of publicly accessible open space.” However this is accomplished only by acquiring open space that is currently publicly owned, and very much in the public realm, as well as utilizing space that is already available to the public. Page 3 4. Demapping and Disposition of City Owned Land For many years, CB2 has asked New York City to transfer the open space strips bordering La Guardia Place and Mercer Street from the Department of Transportation to the Parks Department. Recently we passed another resolution asking for this transfer, and received the support of all of our elected officials (see Appendices B and C.) NYU has defaulted through the years on agreements with the City and the community to create and maintain public open space. It makes no sense that one of the proposed amenities of the project is to take public parkland away from the public and instead offer access to space the community already has access to - but will now be surrounded by buildings, and to deprive an entire generation of access to parks and playgrounds.