Schools, universities, hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes, houses of worship and other institutions defined by law as "community facilities" are allowed to build far larger structures than would otherwise be permitted in residential areas. The planning theory is that they serve the general welfare, belong in neighborhoods rather than commercial districts and, by their very nature, need more space to operate efficiently.
The planning result, however, has agitated residents from Greenwich Village to Flushing, Queens, as they watch community facilities fill the skyline with bulky profiles and nearby streets with traffic.
Two dozen neighborhood leaders joined together 12 days ago to form the Citywide Coalition for Community Facility Reform. They question why community facilities need to be up to twice as bulky as nearby buildings, why they are permitted to cluster in certain neighborhoods and even what constitutes a community facility.
At the same time, the City Planning Department is studying proposals for a series of changes in community facility zoning, working with Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who heads the Council's zoning subcommittee. "The residential character of many neighborhoods throughout the city is being destroyed," he said.
For the time being, the revisions will not address the issue of building bulk, though that is the lightning rod in Manhattan. The construction this year of the Kimmel Center for University Life at New York University, on Washington Square South, was one of the sparks behind the creation of the new citywide coalition. The 11-story structure will serve as the student center on completion early next year. Even under construction, it has claimed a prominent place in the familiar vista through the Washington Arch..
"Where arch and sky were previously dramatically framed by lower Fifth Avenue, this view now looks more like a blind alley," wrote Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and one of the organizers of the new coalition. "Many assumed that given the wealth of historic resources in close proximity to the proposed building, there would be some greater degree of regulation or control over such a large project. There was not."
[New York City Planning Commission Chair Amanda] Burden questions height limits generally - though she said the image of the Kimmel Center rising over Washington Square "really takes your breath away" - and said she would concentrate for now on "the impact of both religious institutions and medical facilities on low-density neighborhoods and the huge numbers of people visiting these facilities that were never meant to be regional."
Nonetheless, Ms. Burden said that when she was appointed chairwoman of the City Planning Commission nine months ago, after 10 years as a member, "one of the first questions I heard was, `Are you going to do something about community facilities that nobody has had the nerve to do?' "
"Why not bite off pieces of it?" she said. "That's my approach."
Click here to see GVSHP’s Response to Commissioner Burden’s Comments