10th Street Embankment
LeFrak will be building 2 buildings on the embankment. Each will have 163 units and be 75 feet tall.
LeFrak promised the community that there would be a dog run included in the plan but he has since gone back to the planning board and asked for an ammendment eliminating the dog run.
On July 8, 2014 there was an amendment passed by the Planning Board that lowered the parking ratio for this building. This change did not have to go before the City Council for approval. City Planner Kristin Russell stated that:
"The planning board granted a deviation from the Redevelopment Plan. State planning law recognizes that to demand that properties be developed EXACTLY as zoning requires is, at times, unreasonable. For reasons such as topographic constraints, irregular lot configuration, or to achieve “better zoning” (because, obviously, we can’t imagine every possible scenario and apply it with a broad brush) certain variances are cognizable by the planning board.
The only thing that the City Council does is adopt zoning. No zoning was changed last night. The plan still requires 1 to 1 parking until/unless that is amended. The only thing that was approved was permission to deviate from the exact letter of the law. Many, if not most, projects request variances from the zoning for reasonable, legal, and technical reasons.
If this is allowed, then can everything be considered a "deviation" from the plan and not have to go before our city council?