Midtown East Steering Committee to Make Everyone Happy
By Tobias Salinger July 10, 2014 11:15 am
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Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Midtown Council Member Dan Garodnick will lead a steering committee in planning the city’s Midtown East rezoning, Capital New York reported yesterday.
Representatives from a mishmash of 10 organizations, including Community Boards 5 and 6, preservation groups like the Historic Districts Council, business organizations like the Grand Central Partnership, urban planning research groups like the Regional Plan Association and the industry’s advocacy group, the Real Estate Board of New York, will figure out a way to jumpstart the 73-block rezoning proposal that died in the City Council last winter.
“The East Midtown Steering Committee, under the leadership of Borough President Brewer and Council Member Dan Garodnick, will bring together key stakeholders to advance a critical conversation on the future of East Midtown, ensuring that the multiple interests of this complex community are included in the formation of recommendations for zoning and other actions, including coordinating new development with appropriate infrastructure and city services,” City Planning Commission Chairman Carl Weisbrod told the publication in a prepared statement.
The group will begin to hold meetings in September and assemble its report next spring to inform the city on everything from density and preservation to the need for new office buildings. That report will shape the city’s Midtown East rezoning proposal, which will follow the report and start the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
“The steering committee’s community-based planning process will be thorough and involve all stakeholders in as open and transparent a process as possible,” Ms. Brewer told Crain’s New York Business in a separate prepared statement.
SL Green Realty Corp’s 65-story tower proposal for 1 Vanderbilt, which would rezone five blocks in the area, should start its ULURP this fall.
