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Huge 400 Apartment Rosebank Development Gets Go Ahead From Community Board

By Nicholas Rizzi | February 16, 2017 2:44pm
 Community Board 1 voted to approve the three building development at 125 Edgewater St. under some conditions like lowering the height of the buildings.
Community Board 1 voted to approve the three building development at 125 Edgewater St. under some conditions like lowering the height of the buildings.
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Department of City Planning

STATEN ISLAND — A plan to bring nearly 400 apartments to Rosebank's waterfront won community backing on the condition that developers lower height and increase parking.

Community Board 1 narrowly approved the development at 125 Edgewater St. so long as its limited to eight stories, has parking spaces for every unit, uses union labor and completes a public esplanade in the first phase of building.

The board voted to approve the proposal 23 to 11 at its meeting Wednesday. Some members and residents argued it will be a strain on the already stretched infrastructure nearby and doesn't have any benefit for the neighborhood.

"We're not against development, but there is no real community benefit," said Barbara Sanchez, of the group Save Mount Manresa which was involved in fighting a separate residential development.

"We haven't had school seats, [we have] transportation issues and our zoning is already a problem."

V Capital Management wants to build 13, 12 and six story apartment buildings with 371 units on an 18-acre lot at 125 Edgewater St. The proposal also includes a parking garage, public waterfront esplanade, retail space in two buildings and a gym in one.

The project calls for a total of 346 spaces, enough for about 70 percent of residents, but neighbors complained it would not be enough at a land use meeting last week.

"This is Staten Island, there's no way to get around the rest of the island [without a car]," John Guzzo, chairman of Community Board 1's Rosebank committee, said at that Feb. 6 meeting.

"You're going to create a white elephant that you and your corporation are going to be gone and Staten Islanders are going to be stuck with what you leave us."

At the full meeting, the developer promised to increase the parking at the development and the board made it a requirement before the plan is accepted.

Residents also worried that building it as high as the neighboring state-owned generating plant could cause health issues for future tenants, even though the state told developers it wouldn't be an issue.

The board added the condition that each building should only be up to eight-stories tall.

"This one we're feeling has more of a direct impact because the height of the stack would be lower than the adjacent property," said Land Use chair Vincent Accornero at the meeting.

"Our assertion because of the adjacency to it and being higher than it, it may be a greater issue."

They also asked the developer to build the nearly 9,000 square-foot public esplanade in one shot, instead of in sections as they work on each of the buildings.

The developers went up in front of the board as part of the first step of the Uniform Land Use Review process to rezone the lot from manufacturing to residential.

The board's recommendation and additions are only advisory.

The project will now move to the borough president, City Planning Commission, City Council and finally the mayor's office.

Aside from the Rosebank development, the board also voted to approve two applications to build homes that don't front mapped streets at 339 Victory Blvd. and 16 and 19 Tuttle Street.