A recent split 2-2 vote by the Board of Standards and Appeals upheld the city’s Department of Buildings’ approval for 50 West 66th Street, which will become the Upper West Side’s tallest building. Local NIMBY group Landmark West was defeated in its assertion that developer Extell wrongly used mechanical space to bump up the 775-foot-tall height of the project without taking into consideration floor area restrictions.
Curbed reported that Extell can once again commence construction on the 69-story building.
Current permits for 50 West 66th Street depict a mechanical space with a contiguous void measuring 176 feet in height. Although critics faced an immediate loss, City Council has since passed legislation significantly cutting back the amount of allowable mechanical space for buildings in various areas of the city. The amendment limits mechanical voids at 25 feet before they use footage allocated to a building’s footprint.
Despite Extell’s success and progress ongoing, local NIMBYs have vowed to continue fighting the project. Representatives for Landmark West have said the preservationist group will continue to push discussions, and The City Club of New York is also engaged in anti-development activism.
No construction timelines have been announced.
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The NIMBYs are the equivalent of a malignant cancer. I am so glad to heat that they were defeated.
I hope that in your life, NIMBY’s are the worst cancer you ever have to deal with.
Hey, Yimby here, but this one is preposterous in their assertions and proposal.
Many of the NIMBYs are just old money that fear the property values of their dated apartments. Don’t get me wrong those classic apartments are beautiful but amenities wise, they just can’t compete with the new buildings going up. Frankly speaking, once you have floor to ceiling windows, there’s no turning back.
My first concern is with the city’s infrastructure in that area: how can the community actually support such a population? And who are or would they be? Perhaps if we had had such warnings before the Lincoln Center development – which had promised new homes for displaced residents, but which were not provided – we might have wondered who the beneficiaries would be of such a development. So, while the working class residents and minorities of the 1950’s may not be displaced by this development, their present generations are certainly not being served here either.
Our culture has always placed people who have money ahead of all the rest who don’t. It’s very defeatist.
“Our culture”? How about human nature? Its ALWAYS been this way, everywhere in the world. But “people who have money” are the ones who build things and get it done. Hopefully for the greater good.
I’ll take New York any day over a city Luke Calcutta.
i live for the last 26 years at 22 west 66 street
and have endured the hellish digging noise , it was horrific living during the day in the apartment, unbearable .
where is Jacqueline Kennedy when she fought Time Warner development and won the case .
50 west 66 street will cast the shadow and central park, trees will die .
I’m ok with the height of this building but the design is just plan wrong for this site.
The long shadow that this building on the westside of Central Park in the afternoon, will cast on it, should stretch all the way to 5th Avenue, a couple of hours before sunset everyday. Come on folks, have no concern about habitability of this city? The supertall on the southside of the Park, if fine, since they do not cast any lasting shadow on the Park. Buildings on the east and west side of the Park do. I am glad that the new city ordinance does not allow for the trick of using 175 feet of “mechanical space” to cheat on us the inhabitant of this city and our beautiful Park. Our city is attractive to the renters and buyers, because it is so carefully managed between tall building, sunlight and the green space. By destroying that, these folks engage in a “slash and burn” regime: making money for themseelve once and at present, and then the hell with the future