City Zoning Turns Green

On Mon­day, May 1, the New York City Coun­cil approved a far reach­ing set of zon­ing changes to smooth the path for build­ing own­ers to adopt new, green tech­nolo­gies. The Council’s vision­ary goals are described on the Depart­ment of City Plan­ning web­site:

“[These changes will] remove zon­ing imped­i­ments to the con­struc­tion and retro­fitting of green build­ings. [They will] give own­ers more choices for the invest­ments they can make to save energy, save money, and improve envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance. This pro­posal will help bring our build­ings into the 21st cen­tury while pro­tect­ing the char­ac­ter and qual­ity of life of our neighborhoods.”

To exam­ine the ways the new zon­ing may re-shape the city, the New York Times hosted a Q and A with Howard Slatkin, direc­tor of sus­tain­abil­ity for the Depart­ment of City Plan­ning, and Paul Fre­itag, the direc­tor of devel­op­ment in New York for the Jonathan Rose Com­pa­nies. Among the likely effects: more green roofs, quicker adop­tion of solar, and new effi­cien­cies in heat­ing and cooling.

The aggre­gate trans­for­ma­tion for New York, through the oppor­tu­nity for step-by-step changes in thou­sands of indi­vid­ual build­ings, can be piv­otal as the city moves to become more resilient. More green roofs help con­trol runoff from storms, bet­ter heat­ing and cool­ing will lower New York’s per capita CO2 foot­print (already, thanks to the MTA, among the low­est in the US), and more oppor­tu­ni­ties for rooftop farms mean a more vibrant and liv­able city.

(Image of the new Via Verde devel­op­ment in the Bronx: Jonathan Rose Companies)