Here’s what the Wagner Planner staff is reading. This week: an unprecedented rent decrease, office-to-residential conversion puzzles, and an update on NYC’s trash conundrum.
Philly Plans to Cap the Vine Street Expressway to Reconnect Chinatown (The Philadelphia Inquirer) – “The planning also will address ground-level Vine Street itself, where traffic is plentiful and fast, so that a cap does not become merely an oasis in the middle of busy east and west streets.”
‘It’s Legal, There’s Just No Precedent’: The First US Town to Demand a Rent Decrease (The Guardian) – In February, a county judge delivered a mixed ruling, upholding Kingston’s rent stabilization but striking down the 15% rent reduction. Both sides are planning to appeal.
Here’s How to Solve a 25-Story Rubik’s Cube (The New York Times) – The deep interior of the modern office building, which is perfectly useful for windowless meetings and supply closets, is now largely useless for apartment living.
Clean Curbs Pilot ‘Not Scalable’ Citywide, Says DSNY Commish (Streetsblog NYC) – One expert agreed with the commissioner, saying the pilot showed you could move the bags out of the way of pedestrians, but there are more efficient ways for collecting garbage that don’t still rely on workers hauling bags by hand into collection trucks.
Seattle Is Now Building More ADUs Than Single Houses (The Seattle Times) – More ADUs are being permitted in wealthy areas, because neighborhood residential zones tend to be well-off, the Seattle report says. Most ADUs permitted last year were in tracts considered to be at low risk for the displacement of people of color and low-income residents, according to the city’s analysis.