BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Developers of a proposed
four-story residential building
in Vinegar Hill have pulled
their rezoning application after
city planners denied the builders’
plans to shrink its size to
appease concerned neighbors
— meaning the property at 265
Front St. will remain a parking
lot for trucks, rather than offer
new homes.
“It is regrettable because
we’re going from a manufacturing
lot that, right now, just
is a parking lot for trucks,” said
Councilman Stephen Levin at
a virtual hearing of the Council’s
Land Use Committee on
Dec. 16.
The applicant, Michael
Spinard, whose family owns
the 6,500 square foot lot — a little
smaller than one-and-a-half
basketball courts — was looking
to erect a 50-foot-high Lshaped
apartment building on
the property, containing nine
two-bedroom units, with commercial
COURIER L 14 IFE, DECEMBER 25-31, 2020
space on the ground
fl oor.
The Spinards fi rst sought
to change the zoning, which
is currently slated for manufacturing,
to allow for an R6A
residential designation, which
would have allowed a building
of up to eight stories — but they
committed to building only a
four-story structure, which
would put the development on
par with the adjacent 19th-century
town houses. That lower
height would also allow them
to forego including any belowmarket
rate units and requirements
to add an elevator.
Both local Community
Board 2 and Borough President
Eric Adams rejected that
proposal, worrying that the developer
might fl ip the property
for a new builder to erect a project
at the full permitted height,
which in turn would have
added between fi ve and seven
“affordable” units, targeting
residents with an average salary
of 80 percent of the area median
income, or about $81,920 a
year for a family of three, with
a maximum rate tagged to 130
percent AMI, or $133,120.
Residents, and the beep, argued
that developers should
instead go for the next-lower
designation, known as R6B,
that would allow about the
same height as their plans but
with slightly less bulk and no
affordable housing requirements,
saying that it was more
“contextual” with the surrounding
zoning.
Locals worried that, even
if the developer didn’t resell
the lot, the change to R6A
could set a precedent for bigger
buildings in Vinegar Hill,
turning the micro-neighborhood
of mostly low-slung rowhouses
into an extension of its
more developed and touristoverrun
neighbor, Dumbo.
A photo of the rendering shows the now-scrapped plans for 265 Front St.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
After the objections, the
developers agreed to the requested
R6B change, adding
that they would replace
the ground fl oor commercial
section with the parking required
for half of the units under
that zoning — a move that
garnered them the support of
neighborhood associations,
community board members,
Adams, and Levin, whose vote
is crucial for the project to
succeed.
However, once those plans
came before the City Planning
Commission, a 13-member
panel, which gives the
fi rst binding vote in the city’s
lengthy Uniform Land Use Review
Procedure, or ULURP,
offi cials rejected the change
from R6A to R6B.
The CPC argued that the
originally-proposed, more
generous zoning was better, as
it left open the possibility of a
larger development with some
below-market-rate units in an
overwhelmingly wealthy and
white neighborhood close to
transit and jobs.
“The median household income
for the census tract of the
project area is over $214,000,
more than three times that of
New York City, and the population
is almost 74 percent white,”
the CPC wrote in its Nov. 18
report. “The proposed zoning
holds the possibility of a development
that includes up to
seven units of permanently affordable
housing, which the
Commission welcomes in an
area of high opportunity.”
A developing story
Vinegar Hill developers pull rezoning app
after city rejects shrunken alternative
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