Introducing Carl Weisbrod earlier this month as the newly appointed chair of the City Planning Commission, Mayor Bill de Blasio promised that “he’ll take on the greatest challenge of our time — the crisis of affordability and the crisis of inequality that grips this city.”
A first test of de Blasio’s approach to city planning is now underway with the massive Manhattan West development, a $4.5 billion complex Brookfield Properties plans to construct on a platform above the rail yards on 9th Ave. between 31st and 33rd streets in Manhattan.
Rendering: Brookfield Properties
Developer Brookfield Properties is seeking to expand the public space at the site from 1.3 to nearly 2 acres, a move that will require approval from the City Planning Commission, City Council and mayor. The 5.4 million-square-foot Manhattan West, first approved in 2010, will include apartments, an office building and hotel and retail facilities.
Brookfield has already pledged to make 20 percent of the housing in the 800,000-square-foot residential complex permanently affordable. But at its February meeting, Manhattan Community Board 4, which has an advisory vote on the project, asked the City Planning Commission to make the commitment legally binding on the developer.
In voting to approve the Manhattan West plan amendments, community board members also called on the commission to make the open space accessible to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Under current plans, it will be closed from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. each day.
In its recommendation to the City Planning Commission, the community board explained that public space “should not be expanded solely to provide access corridors to retail venues” and should instead “be driven by a desire to create a respite from commerce, an inviting refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city.”
Board members urged the developer to look to the its own Winter Garden Atrium at the former World Financial Center, now renamed Brookfield Place, as a model of “a beautiful and stirring example of what great public space can be.”
As described by Brookfield to the community board, the space “will be extensively landscaped with both trees and planted areas, and have fixed and moveable seating and tables and other amenities.”
Some attending the community board meeting were not impressed. “These guys come in here with their suits and their snobby attitudes. What is this? This is Chelsea, not the Upper East Side!” said one angry resident, Kalliopi Giannatos, after the developers presented their amended project.
“This is insulting for Chelsea,” she said, “I think they should provide more open space.”
A representative from the Fashion Institute of Technology also expressed concerns. “FIT continues to have doubts on safety, design and accessibility of the project,” said the speaker, reminding the board that thousands of students live in a dorm across from the site.
Community Board 4 members were among those who showed up at the Feb. 19 City Planning Commission meeting to state their demands for 24-hour public access to Manhattan West.
“The board fully understands the necessity of closing public access areas for emergencies or repairs,” said Jean-Daniel Noland, chair of Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton land use and zoning committee for Community Board 4. “But we do not believe that outside of these contingencies, open public access in our district, in the heart of a 24-hour city, should be closed to the people of New York.”
Michael Sandler, representing the office of Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who also holds an advisory vote, asked the commission “to ensure that the space can never be physically closed off from the public.”
They were met with objections from City Planning Commission member Anna Hayes Levin, who described the hours of the public space as “generous.” Levin formerly chaired Community Board 4’s land use committee.
A City Planning Commission spokesperson said that Weisbrod could not comment on the Manhattan West proposal prior to beginning his work on the commission. While another six members of the 12-member commission are named by the mayor, those were appointed to the commission by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and are serving out their terms.
After a commission vote, the public space proposal moves on to the City Council for approval.
