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The Manhattan Borough Board March 2, 2017 >> Good Morning

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The Manhattan Borough Board March 2, 2017 >> Good Morning The Manhattan Borough Board March 2, 2017 >> Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining me. I'm Gale Brewer, President, and soon we'll be joined by the very special Dan Garodnick in this effort and he is a council member. Thank everyone for being here. We're holding this hearing to discuss the greater East Midtown rezoning proposal which is now going through the universal land review procedure. We know what loop is. And launched under the department of city planning on January 3rd and it involves review by the affected community boards, the borough board, separately as Borough President just us, the city planning commission and the council. And we know that Manhattan Councils 5 and 6 will be voting on this. This is not normal. I don't know if anything in New York is normal. It went through a vigorous and successful pre-planning process thanks to many of you in this room. Dan Garodnick and us led the steering committee that you were on. And it was representative of all the stakeholders in Midtown along with the community boards and I want to thank all of them. And we developed principles that guided the city's work on the Vanderbilt corridor zoning and now it's called greater Midtown proposal. Worked together through months of conversation, meeting with different people. We had more than 20 meetings, steering committee meetings, and we tried to review every issue from transit to landmarks to air rights to green building standards, open space and much more. It was a big undertaking, but very necessary. There are approximately 475 buildings in the rezoning area. With 90 million square feet of space. 300 of the buildings are more than 50 years old. The average age of an East Midtown office building is 75 years, and only 500 buildings been built in the area since 2001. So the office space is old. And action to spur new state of the art construction is justified. Because the continuous success of this district is crucial to our city and my friend, when he was chair of the city planning commission pointed out over and over that 10% of all the property taxes in the five boroughs comes from East Midtown. This area. It's huge. Downtown Manhattan has a lot of discounts. So this area is a real generator. Consider this. Roughly 10%, as I said, of all the property tax revenue are -- we are going through this discussion. But at the same time rezoning provides an opportunity we cannot pass up to use the element to improve this neighborhood and this district in ways it wouldn't be easy to do otherwise. With One Tower going up now is a model for this. In exchange for more density we are getting more than $200 million worth of improvement to Grand Central transit infrastructure. And instead of contributions to a fund that may or may not be spent right away or the right way we are getting hard commitments to get the actual transit improvements we need built. I think you all know that. So the steering committee determined that using this rezoning to generate guaranteed improvements to transit and the public rail was the baseline for any agreement for the development. And critically important we also determined that we should use this rezoning to support this area's landmark properties by ensuring that they have the opportunity to sell their unused development rights There are some amazing landmarks in this area, including 12 new ones that were designated by the landmarks preservation commission as a result of the steering committee's work. And I want to thank the commission. Now the plan in front of us we put together at the department of city planning in response to the principles that we came up with. Now it is in front of all of us for review. I want to hear from all of you, from inquiries and advocates and what deserves praise and what needs to be fixed. I've never met a plan, even one that I helped put together, that wasn't improved by a thorough public review. I want to thank particularly Scott Evenbeck the President of Guttman Community College, and Katrina who helped put this together. And now over to Jim Caras, deputy director of land use. They're advocates. Thank you all very much. [ Applause ] >> I snuck in. Hello, everybody. I'm Dan Garodnick, local councilman and I wanted to be here tonight at least at the beginning. And I apologize, I will not be able to stay for the entirety of the evening. Though I will be ably represented by my staff. With a great appreciation of the borough President for convening this hearing and for her now well over a year of -- or two of partnership in trying to bring this complicated proposal to a thoughtful conclusion. We know that many of you have been following this process along. Some of you even have been engaged with us as part of the steering committee to think through the possible ways to animate this plan. For that we have a lot of appreciation. We are in a much different position than we were four years ago. We have a much higher degree of certainty for the public on potential improvements. We have a much higher level of certainty for landmark protections. We have a much more thoughtful plan that was the result of so many months of consideration by stakeholders in East Midtown, but it's officially just the beginning of the process. So that's why this conversation is so important. Gale and I have been deep in this for so long, but we also both recognize, as the Borough President just said, that these plans tend to get better with public contribution. We both have seen this before. It is a -- it's a very good thing. It's a positive thing. Whether it's questions about the boundaries or questions about light and air or questions about minimum contributions or what the MTA benefits should be precisely. There's -- this is a -- there's -- this is a complicated proposal, and there's a lot to think about here. So we appreciate that you're willing to come and spend an evening and think about this. And I can tell you, for myself, and I know this is certainly the case with the Borough President, that we take your commentary very, very seriously. So we look forward to hearing tonight. And then, of course, also when this plan comes to the City Council, we'll look forward to welcoming you to City Hall to do this one more time. But with that I say thank you, again, the Borough President, for convening this. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. I would like to thank the Manhattan member of the city planning commission. Stand up and we will recognize you. And thank you very much for all your hard work. >> Okay. So we're going to start calling people up. If you could just keep your testimony to three minutes and be conscious of speaking slowly enough for the sign language interpreter who will be signing. Thank you. Oh! And a written record will remain open until the Borough Board meeting on March 16th. So if anyone wants to submit comments they can submit comments through our Website. And if you have written testimony you can bring up copies for the people and that's fine before you start speaking bring your copies up here. So Duane Roggendorff from the Grand Central park improvement district and -- Parks from the East Midtown [inaudible]. >> For nearly three decades Grand Central partnership has been in the business of -- >> Hold on one second. >> Okay. >> Once again. Can you hear now? >> Is it on? >> It is on. >> Speak right into it. >> All right. For nearly three decades the Grand Central partnership of Midtown Manhattan improvement district has served a seven square block area surrounding Grand Central terminal, providing an array of supplemental services supporting property and business owners and helping to make this neighborhood a bustling global and urban center. The proposal to rezone what is essentially the footprint is the most comprehensive urban planning proposal to come along in years and we are pleased to have been a participant on the East Midtown steering committee as an advocate for not on our jurisdiction, but our city. And we thank our Borough President and councilmember for giving us the opportunity to participate in this critical effort. In our support of the greater East Midtown plan question will highlight three very important issues for your consideration. Because of time constraints this evening we will submit a more comprehensive statement for your review and consideration. One, is the neighborhood's keeper of the public [inaudible] we plan to totally or partially close Streets be scrutinized with property and business owners. Stakeholders familiar with the plan have voiced concerns about traffic congestion, noise pollution, lack of entry to businesses, limited access to freight elevators and loading docks, illegal vending, and most critically first responder and emergency vehicle access to these Streets. It is crucial that any plan or plans in the area fully evaluate the potential negative impacts that may occur not just describe the potential benefits of such a plan. GCP staff, along with representatives from the Mayor's office, Department of transportation and city planning have been meeting with affected property owners to hear their concerns on these issues and will continue to do so.
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