Zoning Incentives for Supermarkets: New York Expands its FRESH Program
The FRESH program, previously offering zoning incentives for grocery store development in 19 districts around New York City, will expand to 11 new locations. May 20, 2021, 5am PDT | James Brasuell |
New York City Planning Commission (CPC) Chair Marisa Lago yesterday announced the expansion of the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program, which is designed to bring convenient, accessible grocery stores to underserved New York neighborhoods.
The FRESH program was created in 2009, offering property owners zoning incentives for providing including space for supermarkets in new developments located in mixed residential and commercial districts. The program also allows grocery stores as-of-right in light manufacturing districts, increasing the locations where they can be built, according to a New York Department of City Planning press release.
A podcast discussion with Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui details how and why the Massachusetts city become a planning trendsetter by adopting an Affordable Housing Overlay earlier this year.
100 Percent Affordable Overlay: Next Up for Berkeley s Reform Movement
After moving forward with parking and zoning reforms, the Berkeley City Council is also considering a new Affordable Housing Overlay on a model previously adopted in Cambridge, Massachusetts. March 5, 2021, 8am PST | James Brasuell |
Berkeley is not resting after taking several significant steps toward planning reform in recent months first by removing residential parking requirements in most parts of the city and then by voting to rescind single-family zoning.
Berkeley Councilmember Terry Taplin has also sponsored a 100% Affordable Housing Overlay, building on a model provided by a similar overlay approved by Cambridge, Massachusetts in October 2020.
PLANNING WATCH-The Los Angeles City Planning Department recently announced that it is terminating work on its long-stalled Purple Line Extension Transit Neighborhood Plan (TNP).
Instead, it will fold this controversial developer give-away scheme into the forthcoming Update of the Wilshire Community Plan. That Update is scheduled to begin in 2022, which marks 20 years since the Wilshire Plan’s previous update and nine years since METRO first paid Los Angeles $4,480,000 to prepare the Purple Line and several other Transit Neighborhood Plans.
This is exactly what community representatives repeatedly requested from the two Council Offices representing the Miracle Mile area. In these meetings, plus on the pages of CityWatch, local residents raised serious objections to the Purple Line Transit Neighborhood Plan. In part they pointed out that:
The FAIR LA Housing Plan Allows Real Estate Speculators to Profit from the Housing Crisis – It’s Sophisticated Nonsense Details
PLANNING WATCH-A reader asked me to review Abundant Housing’s Fair LA housing plan.
It contains an elaborate formula, disconnected from the legally required planning process, to up-zone all of Los Angeles, with most up-zoning directed at affluent neighborhoods. If adopted, it would lift the zoning code’s restrictions on density, height, mass, and open space throughout the entire city. I have previously dubbed this approach to city planning urban Reaganomics because its goal is to increase housing supply through deregulation. But, unlike Ronald Reagan, its advocates pawn themselves off as “progressives” so their developer-friendly proposals can gain political traction in liberal Los Angeles. For example, they invoke the name of Bernie Sanders, while totally rejecting his approach to the housing crisis: restore HUD pu