Adams’ planned rezoning tweaks garner mixed reviews
Chair of Land Use & Zoning, Mitch Korbey, was quoted in an article from Politico discussing how Mayor Eric Adams' plan to eliminate environmental reviews for small residential developments is winning him praise from developers and housing advocates — and prompting concerns from City Council and community board members. City Hall is looking to exempt rezonings or other land use changes that would yield roughly 200 units or less from a required environmental assessment. Officials say the reviews — which look at how adding new apartments will affect things like school enrollment, transit ridership and sewer usage — add time and cost to the development process while often finding few actual impacts.
"My concern is that this initiative may face some legal challenges from certain folks who think that making the [city’s environmental review] manual more flexible is not appropriate and that we should be amending the [state] environmental law itself," said Mitch, who nonetheless called the city’s plan "incredibly encouraging."
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