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DCP explains approach to zoning and mixed-use development in AAMUP
1:07:01
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4 min
Alex Sommer from the Department of City Planning (DCP) explains their approach to zoning and mixed-use development in the Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan (AAMUP). He outlines the thought process behind their policy decisions and the challenges they faced in designing zoning tools for the area.
- Sommer acknowledges Community Board 8's request for an arts industrial incentive tool similar to the Gowanus Mix.
- He explains the historical context of the area's zoning and the market conditions that influenced their decisions.
- Sommer details the findings from a citywide study on industrial mixed-use buildings and how it informed their approach to AAMUP.
Alex Sommer
1:07:01
Thank you for that question.
1:07:03
And I completely concur.
1:07:05
Community Board eight in particular has been nothing but clear on their request for something akin to the Gowanus Mix which is an arts industrial incentive tool.
1:07:15
I wanna note the Department of Planning fully supports the goal of creating and maintaining a mixed use neighborhood as part of the AIM UP.
1:07:26
And I'd like to briefly walk through some of the thought process and the policy decision making here.
1:07:34
Because through the decade of planning we've actually gone back and forth on different tools.
1:07:39
So I just want to highlight some of that and then I'll pass it over to Jonah to explain how the existing mechanisms are intended to work.
1:07:46
So the area has been zoned for M1 use since 1961.
1:07:53
It allows the full gamut of uses today, retail, community facility, industrial.
1:07:59
But even under that situation there has been limited new development even of retail and community facility.
1:08:07
One of the impetuses for engaging with the department originally in 2013 was because there was a significant number of vacancies.
1:08:14
And so that goes into our thinking about existing market conditions.
1:08:18
Fast forward to twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, we actually undertook a citywide study and used the Crown Heights neighborhood here as a test case.
1:08:30
We published a report, it's online on our website, it's called Can Industrial Mixed Use Buildings Work?
1:08:37
This informed the application of using zoning to enforce new mixed industrial or residential or industrial office development.
1:08:49
When we looked at the Crown Heights area, there was a couple of things that popped out in the report.
1:08:55
First off, the Cannes Industrial Mixed Use report identified it's really important to have large sites, so 20,000 square foot or larger with multiple street frontages, so like two to three street frontages, and kind of an existing market of non residential uses.
1:09:13
This is important because when you're combining industrial uses with residential, you really need to separate lobbies and cores for residents.
1:09:23
You need to add additional environmental protections.
1:09:26
The multiple street frontages are important because you want to have loading on one side, the residential lobby on the other.
1:09:31
You don't want somebody with a baby stroller crossing a loading bay.
1:09:36
And the sites in AIM UP including on the interior mid blocks are generally small, irregular, they maybe only have one or two frontages.
1:09:46
So we had concerns about requiring that type of mixed use on the mid blocks.
1:09:51
That was why in 2018 our land use framework actually split kind of the baby.
1:09:56
We had MX and residential allowances in the Western mid blocks and M uses only in the Eastern blocks where there was a little bit more activity with like 1,000 Dean, GMDC and other kind of like loft style buildings.
1:10:09
And actually just to compare to Gowanus, that was actually the same approach we took in Gowanus with upland mid blocks that were smaller in size.
1:10:17
We mapped those as m only areas.
1:10:20
Recognizing that along the waterfront for very large sites we did include a mix of uses with that Gowanus mix incentive program.
1:10:30
During the outreach during 2022 and 2023, we heard a lot of pushback for having an M only area.
1:10:37
And so we redefined the zoning land use framework and the tools again and that's the proposal now before you at the City Council.
1:10:46
We created kind of three new tools and I'll let Jonah explain them in detail.
1:10:49
But the first is a non residential requirement on avenues.
1:10:54
And the idea there is to kind of soak up demand for retail and community facility.
1:10:58
Those uses really want to be on active avenues and corridors.
1:11:01
The second is this new incentive tool which actually provides more incentive floor area than was proposed in Gowanus.
1:11:08
And then just recently the City Planning Commission modified the text to actually allow for the first time as of right, there's a ministerial certification, but like there's a pathway for an as of right development to include manufacturing uses in residential.
1:11:24
We didn't have this tool before.
1:11:26
We worked with our sister agencies.
1:11:28
It was heavily informed by Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center.
1:11:31
This is something that they've asked for based on lessons learned with their Brownsville project.
1:11:36
And we think the combination of these tools will actually achieve the goals outlined by the community board but in a different set of mechanisms than the Gowanus mix.
1:11:46
And Jonah, do you want to explain the minutiae of the two zoning tools?
1:11:50
Sure.
1:11:51
Thanks.
Jonah Rogoff
1:11:51
I think Alex covered a good chunk of that.