Accidental Skyline – The Municipal Art Society of New York
▻https://www.mas.org/initiatives/accidental-skyline
Rendering of the Manhattan skyline with proposed super-tall buildings.
A blueprint for a more intentional city
2013-present
Since the release of its Accidental Skyline report in 2013, MAS has been raising the alarm about the need for new rules and regulations to protect public assets like light, air, open space, and the character of the City’s neighborhoods from supertall towers and out-of-scale development.
New York is experiencing an unprecedented boom in as-of-right, out-of-scale development that flout the intention of our zoning code. We urge the City to address the following interrelated issues that have given rise to supertalls and out-of-scale development:
Loopholes and outdated rules, including provisions for air rights transfers, zoning lot mergers, height factor buildings, structural voids, and floor area bonuses, along with deficient environmental review evaluations and questionable mitigation enforcement;
Inadequate public input, including significant actions with no public review, resistance to community-based planning initiatives; and
Lack of accountability, including an opaque process rife with inaccessible and incomplete information and insufficient building applications.
Please visit our ten-point plan for reform: How Do We Fix It?
▻https://www.mas.org/initiatives/accidental-skyline/#fix-it