East Side A New Study Faults Plazas as Public in Name, Private in Look

MICHAEL KEANE is not sure if any New Yorker, however brash and ill-mannered, feels comfortable walking into a restaurant, past the host’s podium and into the outdoor seating area, sitting down at a table set with silverware and unwrapping a brown bag lunch.

The question, for Mr. Keane, an urban planner, has less to do with dining etiquette and more with the fact that the outdoor seating area of the restaurant in question, Caliente Cab Company, at East 33rd Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill, is a designated public space.

There are more than 500 privately owned public spaces in the city, mainly concentrated in Midtown and downtown Manhattan, where, since 1961, developers have been allowed to build taller buildings if they, in turn, agreed to have such spaces open to all.

But in a recent eight-month study of 77 privately owned public spaces on the East Side, Mr. Keane concluded that 30 of them, including the one at Caliente Cab Company, had obstacles to public access that included padlocked gates, piles of garbage and spikes on supposed seats. Mr. Keane called the Caliente Cab situation an example of “commandeering,” with the cafe’s customers monopolizing that particular outdoor space.

“There are plenty to choose from,” Mr. Keane said of the neighborhood’s public plazas. “Whether or not you can use them when you get there is another story.”

MICHAEL KEANE is not sure if any New Yorker, however brash and ill-mannered, feels comfortable walking into a restaurant, past the host’s podium and into the outdoor seating area, sitting down at a table set with silverware and unwrapping a brown bag lunch.

The question, for Mr. Keane, an urban planner, has less to do with dining etiquette and more with the fact that the outdoor seating area of the restaurant in question, Caliente Cab Company, at East 33rd Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill, is a designated public space.

There are more than 500 privately owned public spaces in the city, mainly concentrated in Midtown and downtown Manhattan, where, since 1961, developers have been allowed to build taller buildings if they, in turn, agreed to have such spaces open to all.

But in a recent eight-month study of 77 privately owned public spaces on the East Side, Mr. Keane concluded that 30 of them, including the one at Caliente Cab Company, had obstacles to public access that included padlocked gates, piles of garbage and spikes on supposed seats. Mr. Keane called the Caliente Cab situation an example of “commandeering,” with the cafe’s customers monopolizing that particular outdoor space.

“There are plenty to choose from,” Mr. Keane said of the neighborhood’s public plazas. “Whether or not you can use them when you get there is another story.”

Chinatown rezoning call keeps resounding at C.B. 3

By Heather Murray

Although Community Board 3 Chairperson David McWater has said the board won't ask the Department of Planning to expand a 114-block East Village/Lower East Side rezoning plan to include the Bowery and Chinatown, a coalition determined to expand the rezoning's area is working to mobilize the community.

The Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side was formed earlier this year to promote rezoning all of Community Board 3. The umbrella organization includes the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, Two Bridges Neighborhood Housing Council, the Sixth Street Community Center, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Chinese Restaurant Alliance and the Community Coalition Against the Business Improvement District.
The original rezoning study that jumpstarted the plan was brought to the community board in 2005 by the East Village Community Coalition. The coalition was formed in 2004 to fight Gregg Singer's high-rise dormitory plan on the site of the old P.S. 64 on E. Ninth St.

...

C.S.W.A.’s Lee is worried that if the areas surrounding Chinatown are rezoned, it would entice developers to buy up property on the Bowery and in Chinatown. She feels for this reason it’s the Chinatown developers who are pushing for the redevelopment plan, not the working class.

“The community board, too, has a role to represent the entire community, not to draw a circle around where the leaders live,” Lee said. “They also need to represent the community, instead of pushing the government’s racist agenda upon the people, instead of becoming the mouthpiece for the developers in this community.”
Hoon Kim first spoke on behalf of the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops at C.B. 3’s January meeting.

Since then, his organization and others in the coalition have been spreading the word about their opposition to the rezoning. Within the past couple of weeks, he has disseminated information and gathered petition signatures at several intersections in the area, including Avenue B and Sixth St. and Delancey and Pitt Sts., and visited local churches, senior centers and small businesses. The coalition has gathered more than 5,000 petition signatures thus far. Speaking last week, Kim said he knew of another 100 people in the past few previous days alone who had signed on to the coalition’s cause.

 

The City of Philadelphia provides maps of City Services, service areas, and zoning rules.

Journal of Urban Affairs

Volume 29 Issue 3 Page 331-332, August 2007

E. R. Alexander (2007)
Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land-Use, by Jonathan Levine
Journal of Urban Affairs 29 (3), 331-332.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9906.2007.00346_1.x

The Transportationist: a weblog by David Levinson at the Nexus of Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems

The Spontaneous City
Essay on planning policies favoring more/less planning and the relationship with land use and transportation. Focuses on "Spontaneous develoment" and "Spontaneous action."

Philadelphia Inquirer
Editorials & Commentary >
Wednesday, Feb 07, 2007

Spot zoning fails to accommodate the greater good
By Harris Steinberg

... Spot zoning yields mega-projects alongside three-story historic structures. It allows soulless parking structures to sit along once-vibrant retail corridors. And it enables gated communities to straddle the river's edge.

Posted on Thu, Dec. 07, 2006
Phila. takes a step toward updating its zoning
A hearing revealed general support for amending the city's byzantine, antiquated planning process.
By Patrick Kerkstra
Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia's Eisenhower-era development blueprint came in for a beating at City Hall yesterday as developers, urban planners and civic activists described it as an obsolete, quirky and cumbersome system that stifles growth and allows for little to no big-picture planning.

Fixing the development code would likely take years, but a City Council committee took a first step yesterday, giving initial approval to a bundle of legislation that could eventually lead to an entirely new zoning map.

No city of comparable size has held onto its zoning code for as long as Philadelphia. Drafted in 1960, the map is so ill-suited to today's developments that as many as 70 percent of all building projects require special waivers, witnesses said at a City Council hearing yesterday.

...The time has come to consider zoning the whole 2,600-square-mile county.That is the only way, Skinner has reluctantly decided, for Gallatin County to preserve its wild landscapes and also save a treasured way of life in farm and ranching communities. Last year, the county won a Trust for Public Lands award for a $20 million open-space program that’s saving 40 square miles from subdivision. But the county’s three commissioners have come to believe that’s not nearly enough to get a handle on growth that’s overwhelming isolated communities and ruining wildlife habitats. “Even though you’re not seeing a lot of development up here now, you will,” Skinner told Sedan’s ranching families. “We need to start doing things differently.”

The New York Times
September 24, 2006
Pros and Cons of a Zoning Diet: Fighting Obesity by Limiting Fast-Food Restaurants
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
The California city of Calistoga (population: 5,190) and the city of New York (population: 8,143,197) have little in common. Calistoga, roughly 80 miles north of San Francisco, is a sun-drenched Napa Valley hideaway known for its spas, hot-air balloon rides and two kinds of expensive beverages: mineral water and wine. New York has intermittent sun, no vineyards and hot air of a different type.
But Calistoga has something that Councilman Joel Rivera of the Bronx wants to bring to New York: a zoning ordinance against fast-food restaurants.
Section 17.22.020(D)(2) of the Calistoga municipal code bans all “formula restaurants.” The ordinance, adopted in 1996, defines a formula restaurant as one that has standardized menus and a name, appearance and logo identical to another restaurant located elsewhere. In short, it keeps out Burger King, McDonald’s and other fast-food chains.
...
Calistoga leaders banned McDonald’s and other fast-food chains to preserve the uniqueness and small-town charm of the city’s commercial areas. Mr. Rivera wants to restrict them for another reason: to fight chronic obesity, particularly in poor neighborhoods. About 1 in 5 New Yorkers is obese, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
...

Posted on Thu, Sep. 21, 2006
Kenney, DiCicco: Zoning, planning need new look
The councilmen say codes and systems are out of date. They want to set qualifications for appointees.
By Kera Ritter
Inquirer Staff Writer

City Councilmen Jim Kenney and Frank DiCicco plan to introduce legislation today that would revamp the city's zoning and planning systems, which they say are too outdated to be effective.

The legislation would set qualifications for mayoral appointees on the City Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment and give the Planning Commission more time to review projects. The councilmen also want to have a public hearing on fees paid by developers to help the community.