City Councilman Tony Avella and the Historic Districts Council announced February 22 that the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architecture has withdrawn its proposal for zoning text amendments for residential development.

Mr. Avella, the chair of the Zoning and Franchise Committee of the City Council, issued a statement that said that "some of their proposals would clearly have had a very negative effect on the many positive rezoning actions we have already implemented to protect residential neighborhoods throughout the City from overdevelopment."

Paul Graziano, the president of the Historic Districts Council, a civic organization, said that "these proposed zoning changes are counterintuitive to the contextually zoned neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs." "The changes," he continued, "would have created more density, height and profits for developers at the expense of light, air and space."

Many of the community boards in Manhattan have been studying the proposals for several months.

The AIA had been working on the proposed amendments for three years and formally proposed them last October and the Historic Districts Council that timing "did not allow for the issue to be brought up at Community board meetings until December during the holiday season."

The Historic Districts Council argued that the proposed amendments "disregard and ignore many of the planning principles articulated in Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030": "three of the proposals...act to encourage the demolition of existing buildings to clear the way for larger development....Furthermore, the decrease in open space suggested by two of the zoning amendments...would probably result in less plantings and landscape, which in addition to its esthetic detriment, would diminish needed absorption of ground water."

"HDC finds it particularly galling," the organization continued, "for citywide zoning text to be revised with such broad strokes for more 'flexible design' and 'more efficient floor plans' while ignoring the very real problem of providing adequate affordable housing."

None of the proposed amendments would have increased F.A.R. (floor-to-area ratios) that establish the maximum bulk that can be developed on a specific site, but they modify allowable building envelopes.

One of the proposals would have increased from 80 to 100 percent the maximum lot coverage for corner lots of less than 5,000 square feet. "Although a desire for consistency is admirable, the resultant ceaseless solidity of the street wall has the potential to become over-bearing, especially when it leads to an extended commercial presence," according to the Historic Districts Council.

Another proposal would permit multi-family buildings on lots less than 18 feet wide and the organization maintained that this would be "a large incentive to demolish the existing buildings...and replace them with new, larger buildings." The organization said this would be "a back-door allowing the proliferation of uncharacteristically tall 'sliver' buildings."

Another proposal would permit dormers on rear setbacks, as shown in the illustration at the right, and the organization argued that this "would allow potentially massive incursions into the rear sky exposure plane, further cluttering the already miniscule backyards."

Another proposal would permit a 25 percent increase in maximum base height in some districts to match that of neighboring buildings. "While this might seem like a reasonable nod to urban consistency, this amendment has the potential to transform whole streets into dark canyons of shadow. On many historic blocks, there are buildings which pre-date the current zoning and are taller than what is currently allowed."