If New York doesn’t want to see its zoning laws become a death sentence on new development, the City Council needs to stomp on the effort to rewrite the rules to stop a building planned for Sutton Place.
The street is one of New York City’s wealthiest, and the well-connected are using their influence to set a new height limit on construction to quash a 79-story tower that might obstruct current residents’ views.
They have Councilmen Ben Kallos and Dan Garodnick pushing the change, with other pols endorsing what they claim is just a move to correct an oversight in the zoning code. Yet that’s plainly not true.
Consider: Many members of the East River 50s Alliance (the group pushing the change) live in The Sovereign, a 485-foot-tall luxury building. Yet they show no shame in demanding a limit of 260 feet on new construction.
As the Real Estate Board of New York notes, the group’s president lives in a place 10 feet above the proposed limit.
I’ve got mine; now I’ll use my power and privilege to make sure you can’t get yours.
What hypocrites.
Mayor de Blasio certainly ought to weigh in against these wealthy New Yorkers’ demand for special treatment. After all, it would set a precedent for blocking the kind of development that’s central to his affordable-housing plans.
If the mayor lets this go through, then he really has no problem with the “Two New Yorks” after all.