Sutton Place Rezoning Plan Approved By City Commission

SUTTON PLACE, NY — A resident-proposed plan to curb the development of "supertall" towers in the Sutton Place neighborhood was approved by the City Planning Commission Wednesday, a Department of City Planning spokesman confirmed with Patch.

The commission voted 10 in favor, one recused and one absent to pass the Sutton Place rezoning plan created by a group of neighborhood residents called the East River Fifties Alliance. The approval will cap future building heights in the neighborhood, but current developments will be grandfathered in, a DCP spokesman told Patch.

The ERFA first submitted the plan in 2016 and an updated version of the plan — which addressed many of the city's policy concerns — was certified for a CPC vote in October of this year.

The commission felt that the rezoning proposal would help bring a level of predictability to resident of the Sutton Place neighborhood, which already features a mix of high-rises as well as mid- and low-rise development.

"Height limits are not the answer in a varied and high density district such as this, but I believe it is important that an appropriate balance is struck to allow flexibility in built form, a reasonable expectation that permitted floor area may be fully utilized, and provide predictability for local residents that new developments will be appropriately-scaled for this high-density residential zoning district," CPC vice chair Kenneth Knuckles said in a statement.

The ERFA's original plan sought to cap all new developments in Sutton Place at a height of 260 feet, but the new place seeks to simply contain the densest development to heights below 150 feet.

The plan draws inspiration from the city's "tower-on-a base" development rules, which generally apply to new developments on wide streets and avenues. The ERFA rezoning would require that all new developments from East 51st to 59th streets east of First Avenue would be required to allocate 45 percent of the total floor area permitted below a height of 150 feet, an alliance spokesperson told Patch. Buildings could still rise above 150 feet, but nearly half of the total density would be at heights that wouldn't be uncharacteristic of the existing neighborhood, according to the plan.

Alan Kersh, president of the ERFA, told Patch that he was pleased the proposal passed but will urge the City Council to remove the grandfathering provision added by the CPC.

"The East River Fifties Alliance (ERFA) is pleased that the City Planning Commission has approved our proposed zoning text amendment to apply tower-on-a-base standards to the East River Fifties," Kersh said n a statement. "We strongly believe, however, that the Commission’s grandfathering of Gamma Real Estate’s project to construct a supertower at 430 East 58th Street was inappropriate."

Kersh maintained that the rezoning proposal was "never about just one building" but claimed that the Board of Standards and appeals, not the CPC, is more suited to judge whether existing developments should be grandfathered into the new zoning proposal.

Opponents of the plan saw it as an attempt at spot-zoning to stop individual developments in the neighborhood. One such opponent was Gamma Real Estate, which is planning to develop a 700-foot-tall residential tower on a three-building site on East 58th Street. The site's previous owner, Joseph Beninati's Bauhouse Group, planned an even larger development for the site, which helped inspire the rezoning fight.

"The sole goal of ERFA’s application has always been to block construction of our Sutton 58 project, in order to preserve the views of ultra-wealthy members living across from the site," Gamma Real Estate president Jonathan Kalikow said in a statement. "Their application has nothing to do with thoughtful community planning, nor does it support the construction of affordable housing."

Kalikow added that he wishes the CPC rejected the plan, but appreciates that existing developments such as Sutton 58 will be grandfathered in to the new zoning laws.

The Sutton Place rezoning plan is now headed to the New York City Council. The plan previously picked up endorsements from local City Councilmen Daniel Garodnick and Ben Kallos.

Photo courtesy East River Fifties Alliance