Even if you get 3/4 of a block, or 15,000 square feet, the parking requirement is just 20%.

At a full block you'll need no more than 18,000 square feet of parking for the 20,000 square feet lot. Meaning it would fit on a full cellar level, with a cement rear yard (plus planters). You would require transfer beams on the underground parking level to support the building, but that is true on the ground floor level too. And the building on the 20,000-square-foot lot -- Novo -- has storefronts.

Larry: I agree that half-block-or-less developments generally don't require parking. But I still think they're likely to be less economical than larger ones, and therefore less attractive to build. Lots of people have put together large lots on 4th recently.

10,000 square feet is half the block, given the typical 100 foot depths and 200 foot blocks. You are talking about two buildings per block. And 15,000 square feet is three quarters of the block. Aside from Novo, does anyone have more than a 10,000-square-foot lot? More than 15,000? I can't think of any.

It's R8A, not R8X, according to my reading of the zoning map.

Yes, the developers could have avoided parking by chopping the lots up into smaller lots with separate buildings. But then they would have faced much larger construction costs and would have had to duplicate building systems, amenities, staffing (doormen don't come cheap), etc. It's probably cheaper overall to build a big building, suck it up, and provide parking as required by zoning. The parking requirements in the zoning law should still be overturned.

Funny, but when I was at DCP, what I heard from community boards was the problem is the grandfathered no parking privileges. That is, if you have an existing building, it may be renovated and reoccupied by a higher trip intensity use without providing parking. (Otherwise, all those restaurants would not have been able to locate on 5th Avenue).

The idea that the staff of the Department of City Planning is pro-parking, and ramming parking down the throats of developers and communities, ain't so. Those who want city planners to rule the world are anti-auto. And those who are more pro-auto are also more pro-free choice, hence the waivers.

The problem arises with all of the "grandfathered" parking privileges in a neighborhood. The existing apt. building has parking for its residents - the ones who have been there forever, that is. As a neighborhood grows, there should be a way of distributing the "pain" in shifting away from car-dependency.
Good luck.

One again, this is an endlessly repeated urban legend. The developers are building parking because they want to, not because they have to.

Well then there should be a limit on how much parking they can build, whether they want to or not.

The pedestrian-unfriendliness of these buildings is a direct consequence of the developer's decision to include a large parking garage. According to some of the Curbed comments, it is geologically impractical to put the garage underground, so the developer put it at street level.

Of course, as Charles said, they could have pedestrian-friendly facades with stores near the street and a garage behind them or on the second floor, but that's a limited solution. If you have any doubts, go visit downtown Stamford (with an M); it's full of buildings with these kinds of "parking pedestals." The old buildings without the pedestals are pedestrian-friendly; the new ones still have big ramps that send cars out onto the streets. If you ask anyone in Stamford for directions, you'll find that for anything more than two blocks away they'll start giving driving directions.

One again, this is an endlessly repeated urban legend. The developers are building parking because they want to, not because they have to.

Under section 25-242 of the zoning resolution, parking requirements are waived for buildings of 10,000 square feet or less in R8 districts, including R8X. So two developers, each putting up a building on half a block, are not required to provide parking.

Under section 25-261, if your are required to provide 15 spaces or fewer in R8X, you aren't required to provide any.

Under section 25-241, there is reduce parking requirement of 20% of the units for R8X on lots of 15,000 square feet or less.

That means up to 75 units can be built in R8X with no parking.

The permitted floor area in R8X is 6.02, so a 15,000 square foot lot could accomodate 75 1,200 square-foot units with no parking. Smaller lots could accomodate smaller units with no parking, until you get down to 10,000 square feet with no parking.

The full 20,000 square foot lot, with 800 square feet per unit, would face a 40 percent parking requirement, and requires 60 parking spaces. That 200 parking spaces would probably take up the equivalent of almost the whole lot, but that could located below grade no problem.

The bottom line is the developers could have avoided providing parking, or could have provided less, or could have put it underground. And these are not fraudulent loopholes. These cutoffs and waivers are specifically thought out to the square foot.

Speaking of which, if NYC can ban smoking in bars and trans-fats in restaurants, it can damned well legislate some design standards and change the off-street parking requirements in the boroughs. I'd move to a nice walkable, bikeable European city if the dollar wasn't sucking wind.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/01/rental_of_the_d_6.php

At least the Crest vents can be taken down and replaced with glass in case they decide to make it retail

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+site:curbed.com+novo-park