It’s important to remember that their “Plan 2031” is a plan for all of their properties in New York City, including those outside the Greenwich Village. So what they want to build on any given site, and even what they “want” to build in the first place, depends to a certain extent what they think will be “approvable” for a given site.
Case in point is the guest hotel they were planning for the Silver Towers site. It seems to me that the main reason they were planning for a guest hotel in the first place was because that use seemed to be one of the few things that could make sense for filling out (up to existing zoning) a site where they believed an approvable building would have to look like one of the three IM Pei tower-in-the-park buildings already on the site. If they weren’t constrained by this requirement, I wonder if a guest hotel would have been such a high priority (in a city, and even an area, with plenty of hotel rooms).
Ultimately, as people may be aware, the building was not approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. So, the plan has sifted, if I remember correctly, to the construction of other buildings elsewhere on the superblock. And, if I remember correctly, these buildings don’t lend themselves for use as a guest hotel.
Benjamin Hemric
Sat., Jan. 28, 2012 9:05 p.m.
It’s been a while since I’ve read NYU’s materials and attended the community board meetings and open houses — plus my attention has been focused on certain aspects of the plan. So I’m not really familiar with all of the various particulars, including those for additional student dorms, etc. But, in answer to your question, if I remember correctly, in NYU’s “current” plans there is a provision for additional dorms space along the eastern edge of the site in the so-called “zipper” building. (It’s called the “zipper” building because in the current plans the building has a somewhat serrated shape.)
However, NYU’s plans seem to be pretty flexible, and the main thing seems to be (as they readily admit) to come up with a “government approved” outline of a plan that will allow them to maximize their properties in a flexible way.
Benjamin Hemric
Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, 9:20 p.m.
If a cartel is the right way to think about it, then it is possible that upzoning a broad enough area would lower all owners’ total property value. Since the purpose of the cartel is too raise profits by limiting supply.
Not exactly. You can consider vacant land as an option to build something of value upon it. Zoning inhibits what can be built on it, thus it limits the value of the option. In the usual cases of zoning, the vested interests (cartel) are the owners of already improved land. (perhaps the owners of poorly located land to some extent too) For the vested interests, their building value gets diminished by additional competition, although the land value goes up. Since demoliting their more valuable building would be the only way to execute on the higher land value, they are stuck and probably hurt by loosened zoning. So, to be more precise, the land value of the properties will certainly go up on a whole as the option is now more valuable. But this will possibly diminish the value of the already built buildings…
If we expected everyone’s total property value to rise with upzoning of a large enough area, we would also expect Houston to have some of the highest property values in the world, ceteris paribus.
I think we agree here. Zoning is not the variable that creates value, it only restricts it and pushes it further away from where it is optimal. Value of land is based upon what it could be used for, which is complex and
unique for each site. Zoning only inhibits what can be used and thus
overall inhibits value. One could take the Houston analogy even further,
and say that “thus the most valuable land in the world is under the ocean”
– or even on the moon, where there is no restriction whatsoever….
So, since zoning restrictions serve to push value away from where it is
optimal, loosening of zoning would indeed hurt the land values in locations
where use was only optimal under a zoned regime. But on net, value would
be “created”. (for lack of knowing a better word meaning “released from
under the boot”)
It would also help to be able to think more clearly about the divisions within property values. So that those owners closest to the amenity would most definitely see their land values rise they might still see their total property value fall due to the fall in value of the “right” to have a building of certain size on their land.
If we expected everyone’s total property value to rise with upzoning of a large enough area, we would also expect Houston to have some of the highest property values in the world, ceteris paribus.
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