The Future of NYC Urban Planning

I was born and raised on a small, residential block in the Upper West Side. Like most of the buildings in my neighborhood, my apartment building was only six stories tall. That’s why I was shocked when just a few months ago I was told a 775 feet building would be built right next to mine, and that there was almost nothing anyone could do to stop it.

The real estate development company Extell released its design for 50 West 66th Street in November 2017, and began tearing down the building that it would be replacing. Extell’s new building would stand more than twice as tall as the tallest buildings in the entirety of the Upper West Side, and would use that height to achieve spectacular views of Central Park and the rest of Manhattan. Surprisingly, though, Extell planned to only create 127 apartments in the building. For comparison, my 60-foot-tall building has 54 apartments within it. So while Extell’s building was over 10 times the height of mine, it had only around twice the number of apartments, and 200 feet of the building’s height would be filled with empty spaces. Dubbed “voids,” these nonfunctional spaces would serve to increase the height of the building so that the apartments above them could have better views.

I also learned that there would be no “community review” for this building, meaning there would be no way for residents to have a say in whether it would be built or not. This is because it was classified as an “as of right development,” meaning that Extell could build without input from City Planning, City Council, or public disclosure if they worked within baseline regulations. Even months after the approval of Extell’s plans, many of my neighbors had no idea what was getting built right next to them, even when it would have dramatic effects on their quality of life.

To learn more about the construction, I started researching the city’s zoning laws and the Department of City Planning. I went to local Community Board meetings and helped create a block association to organize our community. I’ve spoken to urban planners, architects, elected officials, and community activists in hope of finding a way to stop the impending construction next door, or at least to negotiate a partial solution. Unfortunately, there was too little time, and in the upcoming months the construction will start.

But what I’ve come to realize is that the issue I faced is so much greater than a single building getting built next door. There are buildings of similar scale being built around the city, from the Lower East Side to Long Island City, Downtown Brooklyn, and Hudson Yards. And if you take into account not just the raw height of buildings, but the height of buildings compared to their surrounding neighborhoods, then almost every neighborhood in NYC is affected by out-of-context development.

It’s an undoubtable fact that the urban landscape of New York will undergo change as the market for supertall buildings grows and the technology required to build them becomes less expensive. And while I don’t want skyscrapers being built in my “backyard,” I’ve come to acknowledge that the future is inevitable. What’s important now is to make sure that the future is controlled by a democratic process that is transparent to all New Yorkers. And that requires not just changing the structure of the Department of City Planning and their regulations, but also ensuring that all New Yorkers are aware of development going on around them and how they can make their voice heard.

The History of NYC Urban Planning

The majority of New York City’s population of around 96,000 people was concentrated in the lower tip of Manhattan in 1810. New Yorkers then lived in tight, cramped neighborhoods with little sanitation or safety. Devastating outbreaks of diseases such as yellow fever were all too common. The Common Council of New York City and the New York State Legislation decided to counter this by creating the “grid-plan” in 1810.

Over the course of the following 60 years, the system of rectangular blocks was created, extending as far up as Washington Heights. This can be seen as one of the first major acts of urban planning in NYC, and like any act of urban planning, it was controversial. Many thought that the rigid system of rectangular blocks and angular buildings would take the soul away from the city and make it a monotonous place. One historian of the time, Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, said, “The new plan was entirely deficient in sentiment and charm, and with its gradual development, little by little, the individuality, the interest, and the beauty of one choice spot after another have been swept away [until] scarcely anything remains to remind us of the primitive beauty and the fascinating diversity of natural charms we know Manhattan once possessed. The year 1811 marks the end of the little old city and the beginning of the great modern metropolis.”

Despite the criticisms, the year 1811 marked a turning point in the history of NYC, and it developed from a small port city in Lower Manhattan to a vast urban metropolis reaching all five boroughs. Proper plumbing and aqueducts were created, streets were paved, rail lines were constructed, and New York became an increasingly larger economic powerhouse. By the end of the 19th century, the population had grown to 3.5 million (35 times larger) and had expanded to occupy all of the boroughs making up NYC.

During this time of massive growth, New York began to see its first supertall buildings in downtown Manhattan. In the same way that citizens spoke out against the construction of the grid system, they spoke out against the construction of massive buildings. They argued that these blocked light and air from the city streets and encouraged large factories and businesses to move into residential areas, worsening the quality of life by leading to congestion. As a result of these complaints from both citizens and businesses alike, New York City initiated a zoning code—the first in the nation—in 1916. The Zoning Resolution of 1916 was intended to prevent the construction of massive buildings and ensure that heavily populated areas remained residential and not commercial. It restricted the height of skyscrapers and mandated they fill a certain percentage of their building lot and also required plazas or low-rise buildings to be coupled with skyscrapers, leading to the famous “set-back” style of building.

After a national act promoting the creation of zoning regulations, Mayor LaGuardia spearheaded the creation of the City Planning Commission in 1936, which was placed in charge of NYC’s land use. The Commission's roles also included updating the official City Map, managing city-owned real estate, and creating historic district statuses. After beginning function in 1938, the Commission spent the next few decades conducting research and sampling public opinion in order to update the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which was quickly becoming outdated. Finally, it created a new Zoning Resolution in 1961. This new resolution addressed a changing economy, a rapidly expanding population, and the increasing use of automobiles. The most important part of the Resolution was that it divided the city into commercial, residential, and manufacturing areas—each with different zoning rules having to do with floor area, height, the building facade, etc. This was the start of true contextual zoning in the city, which has continuously remained the basis of City Planning in NYC.

Present Day NYC Urban Planning

There have been no new zoning resolutions since 1961. Nonetheless, the City Planning Commission has grown larger in scale and scope, and the main role it plays nowadays is approving public and private land use applications throughout the city. Every year it goes through around 500 applications, which are either unilaterally reviewed and decided on by City Planning or go through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). The ULURP allows applications to be publicly viewed, and means they must be approved by Community Boards, the Borough President, the Borough Board, the City Council, and the Mayor. Unfortunately, 98 percent of applications for new buildings nowadays do not go through ULURP, but are automatically approved “as of right.”

Because most buildings are built “as of right,” the text of the 1961 Resolution is the only screening criteria for new buildings in the city. This is quite problematic, as the 1961 Resolution is incredibly outdated. While in 1961 the Chrysler building was still regarded with horror, nowadays the Chrysler building is admired as one of the most elegant skyscrapers on the skyline. A combination of a growing market for high-rise buildings and a rise in cheap technology to build upwards of 800 feet means that the 1961 Resolution no longer applies to new constructions throughout the city, and is in dire need of being replaced with more relevant regulations.

Looking Forward to the City Skyline

With the potential creation of a new Zoning Resolution comes the difficult questions of what to include in it and how to deal with the massive spike in development facing the city. The most controversial issue involves the height of buildings, and how to regulate them in way that maintains the historical integrity of the city. At first glance, these tall buildings appear to have mixed effects on their communities, but with closer examination it is apparent that they benefit the wealthy over the lower-class. While their massive size would appear to create more housing for a city with a growing population, most of the luxury apartments in high-rises remain vacant and become “cash-boxes in the sky” for foreign investors. While the large amount of labor required for the construction of these buildings has been shown to raise employment rates in all sectors (not just for construction workers), the enormous scale of the buildings also requires the use of an incredible amount of resources not just to be built, but to be maintained. Bringing water, air, heat, and energy thousands of feet above the ground is not just costly, but unsustainable. And when supertalls begin to accumulate on the skyline, they can have massive effects on the environment, from creating wind tunnels to casting shadows on streets and parks. A new zoning resolution would have to protect the city from the massive construction of supertalls harmful to the environment while also allowing beautiful, modern buildings to be built, especially ones that are sustainable and affordable for the average New Yorker.

In addition to changing the regulations on construction of supertalls, it would also be important to change the approval process for new developments so that they include community review. Most importantly, all buildings should have to be approved by their district’s Community Board, and go in front of community members to inform them of the changes that will be occurring in their neighborhood. The City Planning Commission has already done a good job of making files and zoning tools publically accessible, but by lending to community input to the process it will be even more transparent.

Finally, the structure of the City Planning Commission needs to change so that it’s less bureaucratic and more democratic. Currently seven of its members are appointed by the mayor, who also chooses the chair. The other six members are appointed by Borough Presidents and the Public Advocate. Though this appears to create a balance, the mayor has one more representative than the Borough Presidents and Public Advocate combined. This means that the mayor is the one who is truly in control of City Planning, which is unjust considering the large role City Planning plays in the lives of citizens. Another issue with the City Planning Commission is that its members are largely pro-development, having all mainly been former members of real estate and development companies. To change these two problems the Commission could create a balance between the mayor and the Borough President/Public Advocate’s members and add in a couple community members to serve as well. By making City Planning more democratic, we will be able to mold New York into a city that is better for the well-being of its people, and not only one for the profits of developers.

New York City is—and has always been—a city defined by the people who live in it. The way we house those people is crucial to the existence of the city and will define how it evolves over time. There are many questions about what the city should be: a place for skyscrapers and the super-rich? A place for historical buildings and the middle class? A place for affordable housing? A place for industry and business? However, once answered, these questions will end up defining the future of NYC. And while it’s near impossible to understand which vision for urban planning will be the best, it it easy to see that there are problems with our current City Planning system, and the only way they can be corrected is by removing control of the city from developers and placing it in the hands of those who live in the city and those who will be living in it for generations to come.