![]() ![]() Understanding Billionaires’ Row and New York’s zoning laws Centred around 57 th Street, there has always been controversy linked to these ultra-expensive developments but it has been more recent events surrounding the supertall skyscraper, 432 Park Avenue, that have inspired today’s post. In recent decades, the urban architectural landscape has seen a resurgence in the arms battle for who can build the tallest buildings. Realistically, do we need the ridiculously tall and thin skyscrapers being constructed in places like New York, Dubai and East Asia? Absolutely not. While they may look the part, these structures are no more than glass vanity projects for countries and cities to boost their image. The epitome of this phenomenon has got to be the addition of entirely pointless masts and spires on skyscrapers incorporated solely to make them taller than their competitors. While in Dubai and other more sparsely developed locations, these structures can be designed with wide bases and sprawling foundations, the already confined space of Midtown Manhattan has led to the genesis of a new obsession for developers: super slender skyscrapers. It is along the southern border of Central Park, in the area dubbed Billionaires’ Row, that the hub of these New York pencil-thin skyscrapers are located.Ī pivotal concept to understand when analysing these super thin structures is something called ‘air rights’. Dating back to 1797, the idea of air rights is legally encoded in the Latin phrase: “Cuius est solum, eius usque ad caelum et ad inferos”, translating to mean “For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to heaven and down to hell”. In essence, a property owns all the invisible air space that is directly above their lot diameter – an asset that in a heavily populated ground level area is extremely valuable in the real estate market. Also referred to by the term ‘Transferable Development Rights’, air rights can be sold to neighbouring properties if they’re unused. Diagram showing the different ways of arranging the floor space of a lot in NYC, FAR = Floor Area Ratio, BCR = Building Coverage Ratio (Designed by CMG Lee) The ‘Floor Area Ratio’ which underpins New York’s zoning legislation dictates buildings can’t exceed the floor area designated to that single lot, however as the diagram below shows, while the overall floor area doesn’t change developers can stack up their floor space to gain taller structures. ![]() ![]() With air rights being tangible assets people can buy and sell, the end result is developers buying up adjacent air rights and proceeding to stack them on top of their own existing floor area. ![]()
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