01Commissioner Amanda Burden
02Stone terraces at Brooklyn Bridge Park
03The High Line park
04Sitting on the High Line
05Alexandros Washburn, director of the urban design division
06Models at the urban design division
07New zoning allows for unfixed public seating
08Michael Marrella, director of Waterfront and Open Space Planning
09Outdoor seating at Battery Park
10Talking over sketches
11Washburn with designers Jeffrey Shumaker and Skye Duncan
12Purnima Kapur, director of the Brooklyn office
13Multi-use seating features frequently
14Relaxing on the grass next to the World Financial Center ferry
15The view from Pier 15
16Playing basketball by the Hudson River
17Monika Jain, project manager for Zone Green and Howard Slatkin, director of sustainability
18A rooftop greenhouse on top of a school on the Upper West Side
19Pier 15 waterfront
20Green fields at Battery Park City
21Battery Park City jetties
22Children cooling down at the High Line
23The recently restored Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park
24Tai Chi in Madison Square Park
25There’s space for four-legged friends at a dog park along the East River
26A pastoral painting scene in the Brooklyn Bridge Park
Throughout the five boroughs of New York, space is at a premium. For the city’s planners, that means making intelligent use of existing waterfronts and parks to showcase that famous skyline from a fresh perspective.
The best tool in the Department of City Planning’s box is zoning – the control of space. As planning permission specifies the size and use of buildings throughout the city, zoning can range from deciding if a new building will have five or 50 storeys, to allowing cafés that offer outdoor seating and encouraging grocery stores to stock fresh fruit. Zoning laws shape how the city looks and feels. Last year, to make life easier for residents, Burden’s office published The Zoning Handbook, which breaks down the topic’s complicated regulations.
One of the best examples of Burden’s goal to “create great open space”. It’s also been a catalyst for the Manhattan area, with 50 million visitors so far, triggering $2bn (€1.5bn) of investment.
Situated on the East River Esplanade in Lower Manhattan, the precisely positioned elevation of the upper deck is a perfect viewing platform for the city.
Fenced-off, derelict land is now becoming accessible to the public through zoning laws that allows waterfront residential building only if developers also build new public parks.
Rooftop greenhouses are now in place in schools across the city, providing education and healthy produce, thanks to zoning relief that allowed their construction.
After identifying the city’s areas where there was little fresh food available and a high number of diet-related diseases, the department developed financial and zoning incentives for fresh groceries.
Soon we may see wind turbines in New York City’s skyline, as proposals are being discussed that would allow for structurally suitable and correctly located buildings to house clean energy-generating wind farms on their roofs.
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