By Adam Janos

High rise developments on the Upper East Side could get significantly bigger soon. The community, meanwhile, could get less and less in return.

Land Use Attorney Shelly Friedman spoke to Community Board 8 on the Upper East Side Wednesday to discuss a text amendment that would make zoning regulations laxer for developers of community facilities (i.e. university and hospitals) throughout the neighborhood so as to permit a large-scale construction for Memorial Sloan-Kettering and CUNY-Hunter.

Currently, MSK/CUNY’s plan for development has a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 12.0, even though it’s set to be constructed on an FAR 10.0 site. In laymen’s terms, FAR is the total bulk of building a developer is allowed to

construct. Buildings are measured in total floor space, so whether a building is tall and skinny or short and squat is beside the point; it’s total floor space of the building compared to the total land area that matters.

The institutions in question co-purchased a plot of land between East 73rd and 74th Street along the FDR drive, and intend to turn the lot into a 750,000 square-foot outpatient cancer facility (MSK) and a 336,000 square-foot Science and Health Professions Building (CUNY).

Unfortunately for the developers, because of the FAR overreach, the institutions need to either find a way to shrink their buildings down by 17 percent, or else apply for a special permit.

That special permit – the Large Scale General Development permit, ZR Sec. 74-743 – currently calls on developers such as MSK and CUNY to deliver the community an investment in the way of open space and/or public works, to help

make amends for their zoning overreach. That investment could come in the form of a public plaza or affordable housing, amongst other items. MSK and CUNY, however, want to change the text on the amendment, and – in turn – change the script. Rather than build a plaza on the plot land they’re sitting on, they’d rather put money into restoring Andrew Haswell Green Park, a strip of land on the East River between East 59th Street and East 63rd that’s fallen into disrepair and currently is locked off behind a chain-link fence.

But since the permit regulation says nothing about investing in current parks – only creating new ones – they’d have to put a change into the language of the zoning law that would allow community facilities such as theirs to offer park development outside of the immediate vicinity of the building being constructed.

Unfortunately for MSK/CUNY, the plan raised a lot of questions for community board members, who among other things, questioned whether or not rehabilitating a park at East 59th Street was adequate compensation for a homeowner on East 73rd who suddenly found themselves with a new gigantic tower for a neighbor.

“Those who suffer should be rewarded,” said Sarah Chiu, community board member and local resident. “With these buildings comes traffic, diminished light… but the idea of this permit is then you can say, ‘at least I have this park. At least I have this plaza.’”

Lo van der Valk, another resident, thought the change to the permit was too elastic, and that if the permit didn’t assign an explicit economic ratio of “total extra square feet” to “resources for park development,” future developers could use the new regulations of the special permit as a fiscal loophole to overbuild and then invest a minimal contribution in the parks department, rather than making adequate public space on the premises of their building, as the current permit necessitates.

According Friedman, however, this isn’t a matter of building a park somewhere else versus building one on location, seeing as MSK and CUNY’s lot of land sits over the FDR drive and – as such – an open space would be ill-suited for the area in question. After all, who wants to sit at a plaza by the highway? Rather, he claims the text amendment would help his clients serve the community more appropriately, and more in the spirit of the original permit.

“You [Community Board 8] have repeatedly expressed interest in more open space,” said Friedman. “This is our attempt to address that.”

By Paul Bisceglio

Memorial Sloan-Kettering counsel Shelly Friedman frustrated the Upper East Side’s Community Board 8 at its full-board meeting last Wednesday, Nov. 14, by refusing to hold a second public hearing on the environmental impact of the recently announced medical center construction project on East 73rd Street.

The project, a $215 million real estate deal between the renowned cancer treatment center, Hunter College and the city, will add two new facilities on a lot by the East River: a 750,000-square-foot outpatient cancer care building and a 336,000-square-foot science and health professions school.
Following the deal’s confirmation in September, the project entered a public feedback—or “scoping”—period, during which anyone with concerns about the project’s effects on the surrounding Upper East Side neighborhoods could share their thoughts with the parties involved. Included in the process was a hearing during which residents could speak directly with Friedman and other MSK and Hunter College representatives. The hearing, though, was held on Nov. 1, three days after Hurricane Sandy.

“I am outraged. It’s not even a sham of a mockery,” said Ed Hartzog, a CB8 member, of Friedman’s refusal to entertain the notion of a second meeting after almost no one attended the first. “You had a public hearing, the public wasn’t informed. You are shoving this process forward without any public input.”

Friedman disagreed. The public was well-informed of the hearing, he claimed: It was announced weeks in advance in accordance with scoping rules, and an e-mail went out shortly before the meeting to confirm that it was still on. “The sense was that the city had sufficiently returned to normal,” Friedman said. “There was a sense that buildings were available. This wasn’t like a snowstorm in which people couldn’t navigate the streets. It was terrible, but people were out in the streets, stores were open, transportation was available. There was no reason to put it off.”

He noted that the scoping period had been for comments after the storm.

“Scoping hearings,” he added, “do not conduct themselves according to the Community Board’s rules.”

Board members contended that they were not arguing for rules, but principles. “Forgetting about whether there has to be a second meeting or not, the point is that this is a project in which you claimed to be a good neighbor and part of the community,” said board member A. Scott Falk. “When in doubt, err on the side of openness. You’re expecting us to approve several variances. All we’re asking you to do is hold a second meeting. This is not about what you have to do, this is about what you should do and could do.”

Friedman shot back that holding another meeting would be useless, because the scoping period was still open and the public could still share their concerns. “These hearings aren’t for people to come and get information,” he explained. “The whole concept of the scoping hearing is that there’s material online, and if you have a comment about what’s online, you can come in, you can write, you can telephone, you can e-mail, you can do whatever you want to submit your comments. The hearing is not the be-all, end-all of the scoping process. … Nothing in that process has been compromised.”

CB8 was not convinced. Following the discussion, they voted to pass a motion that requested a second hearing and a further extension of the comment period.

This was not the first time Upper East Side residents questioned MSK’s neighborly character. Earlier this year, co-op residents in a building next to MSK’s outpatient surgery facility at York Avenue and East 61st Street protested renovations to the facility that would block their building’s windows. MSK rejected their requests for a less bulky design.