By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — Community Board 7 says its demand that Extell Development Company set aside part of the massive Riverside Center project for affordable housing is moving closer to reality, but progress is slower on the board’s hopes for a school at the site.
That's what board members called “the good news and the bad news” at a Tuesday night meeting to hammer out the board’s position on Extell's Riverside Center, the controversial development proposed for an 8-acre swath between 59th and 61st Street and West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard.
Extell wants to build five residential towers, a movie theater, stores, an auto showroom, an underground parking garage and three acres of open space at the site. Some Upper West Siders have railed against the project, calling it an enclave for the rich that will add little to the neighborhood.
In the works since 1992, the development is now moving toward a final vote of approval at the City Council.
But before then, Community Board 7 gets to weigh in with a list of concessions it hopes to win from Extell. Among them: the board wants Extell to remove one of the five buildings to make way for more open space.
Affordable housing and a school big enough to handle at least 1,400 students are also at the top of Community Board 7’s wish list.
Extell has offered to set aside 12 percent of the project’s 2,500 housing units as affordable housing for 20 years. Community Board 7 says that’s not enough.
It wants 20 percent of the housing — in square footage, not units — to be made permanently affordable.
The city is backing that idea, board members say. Board member Ethel Sheffer said Monday that city planning officials are now negotiating with Extell to make 20 percent of the housing permanently affordable.
“The very good news is that our priority, and the community’s priority, has been taken up by the city,” Sheffer said Monday.
Developers usually get a bonus — they’re allowed to develop 33 percent more floor area — if they agree to provide 20 percent affordable housing. But Sheffer said Extell wouldn’t be eligible for that bonus.
The deal could yield roughly 450 to 500 units of affordable housing, Sheffer said.
The City Council has final say on whether the affordable housing requirement remains a part of the project.
News on the school front wasn’t as rosy. With Upper West Side schools already overflowing with students, Community Board 7 wants Extell to build a K-8 school big enough for six sections, or roughly 1,400 to 1,500 students.
Extell says it will set aside space for a 150,000 square-foot school. But the developer has agreed to pay for only the “core and shell” — four walls, roof and floor — on half of the school building. The remainder would be left for the School Construction Authority to build.
Community Board 7 member Mark Diller says Extell’s school plan would accommodate about 480 students. That’s not enough for an already overcrowded district, Diller said.
“There were five more kindergartens in our district than could fit last year,” Diller said. “We could fill this school today.”
Community Board 7 holds the next public meeting on Riverside Center on July 6, when the full board will discuss the issue.
