Under siege from developers and a land-hungry New York University, the Lower East Side and the East Village is slated for a major overhaul of zoning laws to protect the historic neighborhoods from the rampant spread of high-rise apartment towers and dormitories.
The new rules would be the first change in zoning in more than 45 years for the neighborhoods, where some blocks currently have no limits on the height of new construction.
“The zoning is so outdated and old that both of those neighborhoods are under threat,” said city Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, whose staff has spent three years developing the new zoning, which would cover 110 blocks.
Burden said the zoning change would limit new buildings to no more than seven stories on most streets while allowing 12-story buildings on a handful of streets, including Delancey, Chrystie and Houston.
The zoning change, Burden said, is intended “to prevent the out-of-scale dormitories” that have been springing up in the neighborhood, the result of a massive expansion program by NYU, which predicts it will need 6 million square feet of new space.
“This is going to provide predictability and quality of life to a residential area,” she said.
The zoning overhaul would stretch from East 13th Street on the north to Grand and Delancey streets to the south, running from Avenue D on the east to Bowery and Third Avenue on the west.
“It will definitely be helpful in terms of NYU’s expansion east of Third Avenue,” said Andrew Berman, president of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
But Berman said the rezoning should have covered a wider area, particularly along the Bowery, which has come under intense development pressure from residential towers and university projects.
“There are few other neighborhoods in New York City whose character is under threat as much at the moment,” Berman said.
The rezoning proposal is now going through community review and will require approval of the city Planning Commission and the City Council later this year.