Overlooking the Forest for the Trees

The Municipal Art Society (MAS), a highly regarded non-profit urban planning group that advocates for a more livable city, is sounding the alarm about the increasing proliferation of “super-tall” skyscrapers. The MAS is concerned about a broad range of impacts such buildings will have in every community where they are proposed (chiefly Midtown, Downtown Brooklyn, and the Long Island City waterfront in Queens), but nowhere does their footprint loom larger than Downtown.

The term “super-tall” is defined by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a leading expert on tall structures, as any building that reaches a height of 200 meters (656 feet) or higher. A total of seven structures meeting this criteria were finished in America in 2016, five of which are located in New York. Of these, three were Lower Manhattan apartment buildings, meaning that just under half of all the “super-talls” in America completed that year were located in the square mile below Canal Street.

But that density of development now appears poised to become even more lopsided. In a new report, “The Accidental Skyline-2017,” the MAS notes that while there are currently six “super-tall” buildings in Lower Manhattan, there are another 13 currently either under construction or in the planning stages. MAS cites a spectrum of worries associated with such buildings, including the need to protect public assets like light, air, open space, and the character of the city’s neighborhoods, as well as the prospect that local civic infrastructure (in the form of schools, transportation systems, healthcare resources, water and sewage networks, and trash collection services) may be overwhelmed by the large populations that such buildings draw, whether they are residential or commercial.

The MAS report reflects that the transformation overtaking the New York City skyline is, “the result of antiquated zoning regulations that, when coupled with an extremely competitive real estate market and advanced construction technology, have fostered a frenzy of speculative development. Since the framers of the 1961 Zoning Resolution never predicted buildings of this size and scope, most ‘super-talls’ escape the City’s public Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and City Environmental Quality Review process.”

A troubling case in point is the building now being designed for 80 South Street, in the Seaport district, which, according to the MAS report will rise to 113 floors, and a height of 1,436 feet. “Southwest views of Lower Manhattan will be irreparably altered in the upcoming years with the construction of a new super-tall at 80 South Street,” the MAS observes, adding that, “the development would be the second tallest building in the city with a predominant residential use.” In recent discussions, members of Community Board 1 noted that the number of families likely to occupy such a building would more than absorb all the new school seat capacity currently planned in Lower Manhattan, for example.

While the local trend toward super-tall buildings is a glamorous attestation to Lower Manhattan’s booming real estate market, and the area’s resurgence after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it also raises questions. For the people who will live in these buildings, quality of life may open to conjecture. In many cases, super-tall also means ultra-thin. And slender buildings necessarily have fewer and smaller elevators (relative to their overall size) than Lower Manhattan buildings that were erected a generation ago. Many Downtown residents who live in buildings that are less than half the height of the new towers listed here, but have large enough base areas to accommodate many more elevators, still complain about having to wait ten minutes or more to reach their lobbies during the morning rush. This problem appears likely to be compounded for residents of narrow buildings whose tops disappear into the clouds.

The MAS also cites a dysfunctional process for evaluating and approving such projects, noting that, “the last major overall of the zoning code was completed in 1961,” adding that, “it is no longer able to protect the public interest, and New Yorkers are entitled to better.” In specific terms, the report focuses on, “loophooles and outdated rules, including provisions for air rights transfers, zoning lot mergers, height factor buildings, structural voids, and floor area bonuses, along with deficient environmental review evaluations,” while also criticizing, “inadequate public input, including significant projects with no public review and resistance to community-based planning initiatives.”

Another area of abuse, MAS says, it the exploitation of “floor-area bonuses,” an incentive zoning program by which, the City grants extra development rights, “in exchange for public benefits, such as subway improvements, affordable housing, privately owned public space (POPS), performance or visual art space, theater preservation, and full-line neighborhood grocery stores.” As a case in point, the report notes the project currently under construction at 45 Broad Street, where developers agreed to construction two new subway entrances with handicapped elevators. These entrances total a little more than 200 square feet in area. In exchange for this amenity, the MAS report notes, the developers were allowed to increase the size of their new “super-tall” residential tower by 71,000 square feet. This was part of an overall package of trade-off under which the building planned for 45 Broad Street grew by more than 300,000 square feet.

To download the MAS report outlined here, click here.