We recently received some very mixed news - at best - from Albany on the final state budget passed, as it concerns historic preservation. LESPI and our allied organizations had been advocating to turn back two proposals that were being considered as part of this year’s budget:
- Removal of the state’s Floor-Area-Ratio (FAR) zoning cap limiting the size of residential buildings. The current limit of 12 FAR has allowed the 100 story monster super-talls to be constructed in midtown’s billionaire’s row. Our thinking: that was more than enough.
- Religious properties exemption — the “Faith-Based Affordable Housing Act” would in effect allow our beautiful historic religious properties, even if landmarked, to be inappropriately altered or even torn down to construct affordable housing.
The final budget, unfortunately, included the removal of the state’s FAR zoning cap. Although historic districts are exempt from the FAR cap removal, now city zoning will be the only brake on crazy out-of-scale development outside the districts. Moreover, the zoning cap removal will likely serve as a disincentive for the City to designate new historic districts. The good news, however, was that the “Faith-Based Affordable Housing Act” did not pass. However we’re not out of the woods yet, we’ll keep you posted on how this bill moves forward. You can read LESPI’s letters to our elected officials on these issues HERE. We want to thank very much all of you who sent the hundreds of letters to your elected officials protesting these anti-preservation proposals, based on LESPI’s email outreach. You helped stave off the worst of this budget’s potential outcomes. |
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