The City Planning Commission yesterday officially certified the Seward Park Mixed-Use Development Project into “ULURP.” This means the first steps have now been taken in the 7-month public approval process required under the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. The plan for the 9-parcel site adjacent to the Williamsburg Bridge calls for 900 apartments, about 600,000 square feet of commercial space and community facilities.
Community Board 3 now has 60 days to approve or reject the ULURP application for the development site formerly known as SPURA. The plan then goes on to the Borough President, the City Planning Commission and the City Council. If all goes according to schedule, approval would occur in October of this year. The city would then issue “requests for proposals” from developers.
While the approval process is ongoing, a city contractor is conducting a comprehensive environmental review of the Seward Park site. The Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination has posted on its web site several documents spelling out the scope the environmental review. You can see an overview here.
There will be a public hearing on the Seward Park project April 18th, 6:30 p.m., at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street. Members of the community are urged to attend. CB3 has a number of concerns about the city’s proposal, including allowances for “big-box” stores, protections for Essex Street Market vendors and the permanence of affordable housing on the Seward Park site.
According to the NYC Economic Development Corp. (the lead agency in the Seward Park project) the full ULURP application will likely be posted online today. We’ll let you know when it’s made public.
i love how protecting the actual essex street market and its building has been watered down into protecting the vendors…so it goes, i suppose…