“The Manufacturing Districts established in this Resolution [NYC Zoning Law] are designed to promote and protect public health, safety, and general welfare. To provide, as far as possible, that such space will be available for use for manufacturing and related activities, and to protect residences by separating them from manufacturing activities and by generally prohibiting the use of such space for new residential development” (Emphasis added)
The above statement is taken from the current zoning laws.
Despite this statement, the COY, is proposing to merge these businesses and bring them into almost all Commercial and Residential areas.
MTOPP is doing a series on Mayor Adams’ City of Yes, “COY” Economic Opportunity Text Amendments, that will change where, how and what types of businesses will be allowed to exist in the City.
The Economic Opportunity Text Amendments are currently being reviewed by all 59 Community Boards who have up until December 30th 2023, to comment on them!
After reviewing over 700 pages of these amendments we found at least 7 major changes that have a serious impact upon the community, and its residents.
- Allowing Commercial Businesses into all Residential Areas.
- Allowing “Small Businesses” to exist in people’s apartments and homes.
- Eliminating restrictive business within Residential buildings.
- Allowing manufacturing businesses to exist in commercial and residential zones.
- Allowing all businesses to exist in all commercial zones.
- Allowing businesses to exists on residential floors and on rooftops.
- Allowing cabaret/dancing to exist on all commercial zones.
Merging of Manufacturing Businesses into Commercial and Residential Areas.
This can be a very difficult topic to understand, thus we will first introduce new vocabulary and then give an example of how the changes exactly work.
Definition – Use Groups
New York City Zoning Resolution (zoning laws) uses, “Use Groups” to determine where a particular business or activity may exist in the city. Currently there are 18 Use Groups, with items in Group 17 (light manufacturing) and Use Group 18 (heavy manufacturing) only being allowed in Manufacturing districts which are separate from commercial and residential areas.
For our example we will be using an item that currently exists in Use Group 18 and that will now be allowed in almost all Commercial and residential areas.
Definition of Items in Use Group 18
Use Group 18 consists primarily of industrial uses which:
(1) either involve considerable danger of fire, explosion or other hazards to public health or safety, or cannot be designed without appreciable expense to conform to high performance standards with respect to the emission of objectionable influences; and
(2) normally generate a great deal of traffic, both pedestrian and freight. (Emphasis added)
The above statement comes directly from the current Zoning Laws.
(see 42-15 Use Group 18)
Changing of the Use Groups
The proposed changes will now combine and collapse these 18 Use Groups into 10 Use Groups, with items in both Groups 17 and 18 merging and mixing into all ten Use Groups.
The new amendments will then allow all ten Use Groups to exist in almost all commercial and residential areas, with a few exceptions.
Example
Under the Current Group 18, (see 42-15 Use Group 18) there is an item called “Sugar Refining.” Currently this business can only exist in a Manufacturing District.
Proposed
Sugar Refinery will be merged under the umbrella of “All other food Manufacturing in (*311)” under Group 10. (go to 32-20) which will then be allowed to exist in all Commercial districts (go to 32-00), except in C3 districts. However, other conditions such as space limitations may apply. (Ibid, See 32-203)
Because these businesses will be allowed to exist “as of right” without asking for permission, it would be up to the public to ensure that any “special conditions” are adhered to, if you can find the business and what category it has been merged with under the new proposed regulations. Which brings us to the next issue.
*Please Note: the number 311 pertains to an extensive list of manufacturing businesses under the North American Industry Classification,
Eliminating the Lists, and Merging Them Under Obscure Categories.
By the COY merging the business lists under the Use Groups and not telling anyone where the items went, has made it very difficult to find where a business now resides within the proposed Ten Use Groups.
Take for example the “Sugar Refinery” we were unable to determine by the new Proposed Text amendment exactly where they put Sugar Refinery within the new Use Groups. It was by luck that we found it. Whereas other items we have no clue what use group they have been placed in.
This prospective is from a lay person looking at the proposed text amendments. However, if you are a professional and know how a business is categorized, you may find the business, but it may not exist within the new proposed text amendment and again you will have go to the outside source NAICS to find it.
We believe this has been done intentionally so that the lay person will not be able to determine if a Manufacturing business can exist in their community and under what conditions.
How could they have fixed this? By indicating under the old text amendments exactly which groups these items were put under. Such as: Sugar Refinery – Group 10 under “All other Food Manufacturing”.
Point of Information
During the COY presentation to communities they mentioned that small bakeries should be allowed to exist on all commercial streets, because DCP has determined it is a “clean” business. The irony is that like the example above sugar refinery, “small bakeries” are also under the umbrella of “All other Food Manufacturing“.
This shows that not all of these so called businesses are “clean” as they had promised, but actually contain very harmful conditions. It appears that the city in their rush to change these zoning laws are refusing to ensure that only “clean” businesses can actually exist within the community.
How could they do this? All they have to do is create a Use Group that lists all of the “clean businesses” that would be allowed and then place all the other businesses within Manufacturing zones.
Instead it would be the public that would have to challenge these businesses for compliance, instead of the laws preventing them from existing.
Next in Our Series
Allowing all businesses to exist in all commercial zones.
Point of Clarification From Previous Post
In the previous post, we spoke about applications that go before the NYC Department of City Planning “DCP” have a 99% success rate. This pertains to Uniform Land Use Review Procedure “ULURP” applications that have been certified and then must go through the public review process (where the public can weigh in and take a non-binding vote on the application itself).
In regards to a person putting a commercial business in a purely residential building, and/or area, these are not ULURP applications but simply discretionary requests where the DCP will simply review the application and decide unilaterally to say yes or no.
This means the public will not be able to weight in on these applications and their approval is completely up to DCP to decide.
Thus, with discretionary applications not only will the public not be able to weigh in, but these applications will not be known to the public until the business itself arrives in the community.
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