Soho and Marisa Lago (iStock, Dept. of City Planning)
The proposal to rezone Soho and Noho is moving forward, despite a lawsuit claiming the plan cannot proceed if the city doesn’t host in-person hearings.
The City Planning Commission on Monday certified the application to rezone the neighborhoods, officially kickstarting the public land use review process. The timing of the certification means the rezoning could make it through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure before the end of the de Blasio administration, as long as it doesn’t face further delays.
The proposal would apply to 56 blocks in the neighborhood, eliminating restrictions that permit only light manufacturing use on ground floors. It could also pave the way for more than 3,500 residential units, of which as many as 1,118 could be set aside as affordable. (The city has identified only 26 sites that are likely to be developed in the next 10 years, which would yield an estimated 1,829 units, of which 382 to 573 wou
UpdatedFri, May 7, 2021 at 6:28 pm ET
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The regular time limit on the public review process will be on hold until a plan for a public hearing in the Gowanus Rezoning is approved by the court. (Marc Torrence/Patch)
GOWANUS, BROOKLYN The city s plan to rezone Gowanus won t take its next step in the public review process until a judge approves logistical details of an outdoor hearing about the plans, according to a new ruling.
Judge Katherine Levine ordered Friday that the public review process known as ULURP will be put on pause for the Gowanus rezoning proposal until the details are approved for a hybrid remote and in-person hearing about the plans.
A judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the Soho rezoning. (Getty)
The proposal to rezone Soho and Noho can technically move forward but it remains on hold for now.
Judge Arthur Engoron on Monday declined to issue a temporary restraining order barring the Department of City Planning from certifying the rezoning application, saying community groups fighting the proposal failed to show “immediate and irreparable harm.”
Those groups and area residents filed a lawsuit last week seeking to halt the rezoning, alleging that the hearings held as part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure must happen in-person.
The complaint filed on behalf of the SoHo Alliance and Broadway Residents Coalition was returned for correction, the state Supreme Court in Manhattan said.
The SoHo/NoHo rezoning would encompass the area bound by Lafayette Street and the Bowery to the east, Sixth Avenue and West Broadway to the west, Canal Street to the south and Houston Street and Astor Place to the north. It would bring as many as 3,200 new housing units to the neighborhood, including 800 affordable units, and give cultural organizations and local businesses more flexibility, the de Blasio administration said.
The mayor s renewed push to move forward with the rezoning quickly attracted support from the real estate industry and community resistance. Village Preservation, a local neighborhood preservation group, recently came out with a report arguing that the rezoning would make the area more expensive, whiter and richer, but the city and multiple real estate experts criticized the report as misleading.