Looking to passage.

City Planning officials have their pencils crossed hoping that the new, and what they consider, simplified rules for zoning can be passed through the City Council and implemented by July or August.

That means anyone not in the ground. with a completed foundation and approved plans on file with the Buildings Dept., can kiss their wished for project goodbye or put themselves at the mercy of a yet to be formed Architectural Design Panel or the Bureau of Standards & Appeals.

Michael Weill, director of planning and zoning for City Planning told the National Realty Club the new regulations were designed to simplify, not to stump.

"It shouldn't take a zoning expert to understand them," he said. Rather than six types of choices in bulk design, for instance, areas may only have two.

But there are over 500 pages of explanation, and the more real estate and zoning experts look into it, they say, the more dour they get.

Real estate experts are complaining about the effects of the unknown, the lack of building envelope choices, the finite height restrictions, and the essentially down-zoning of areas that could limit economic growth, housing development and expansion of cultural and educational institutions.

Developer Peter Kalikow, who is on the board of governors of the Real Estate Board of New York, has many concerns, but is troubled by the administrations mixed message.

"For 30 years the city has been trying to get builders like us to build in the boroughs, and now that we're ready, they want to down-zone," said Kalikow. "Lots of my colleagues are looking at sites in Brooklyn and Queens, and with the rezoning, they are ready to walk away. I think it's an idea that needs to be rethought."

Most individual owners and developers have not been as outspoken, often leaving meetings on the topic wondering how the changes will actually affect them. Those with no current project or site under development are seemingly apathetic, but active developers and their professional consultants who have studied the issues, are rallying behind the scenes.

"They are grumbling to me," said Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, who says REBNY is opposing the changes. "The owners don't want it reported that they are complaining because they have to appear before the Community Boards and Planning Board with their projects."

The problems come from the application of the text, and unless the wording of the new rules are applied to a particular circumstance, its effects are often hidden.

Attorney Michael T. Sillerman, chair of the land use group at Rosenman & Colin, says that while the so-called Unified Bulk Program Zoning Text Amendment does not change the floor area ratio or FAR of area, when applied, in a lot of instances, it has the same effect as a downzoning.

"If you adopt a set of envelope rules that make it impossible, as a practical matter, to use the floor area you have on your site, the result is the same as a downzoning," Sillerman said.

So if the project loses 100,000 square-feet of development because the building height is decreased, the text amendment has the same effect as a downzoning.

One large owner found out by chance that the height regulations could prevent its latest acquisition from hosting the small outbuildings required to serve antennas and generation equipment need by todays' commercial tenants. That situation, and several others is being examined now by Planning officials, Spinola said.

REBNY and other groups, including the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), is continuing a dialog with City Hall and City Planning because of issues that include "extraordinarily low heights" in the R6, R7 and R8 zones and definite heights. "Philosophically," Spinola insists, "We don't believe there should be height limits."

Architect Costas Kondylis explained the text changes in the lower density R6, R7 and R8 neighborhood will curtail the size of the currently allowed buildings.

Where an R8 zone can now be built in the 25 to 30 story range, the new text will force them down to 11 to 14 stories, Kondylis said. Too, the R7 zone will be affected by about half the height.

What's the aesthetic difference between 30 and 40 stories?, Kondylis asked. While, perhaps not much visually, it impacts the economics of the project, Kondylis cautioned.

Louis J. Coletti, chair and CEO of the Building Trades Employers' Association, a coalition of 1,000 contractors which does not support the Unified Bulk Program said, "It seems the new zoning requirements that would set height limits is not an appropriate economic development tool and could hurt the future growth of the city. We have some of the most creative architects in the world and to limit their creativity to design by flattening out the building, we didn't think would be appropriate. It's what has made real estate great in the city."

Echoing Kalikow's comments, Kondylis said, "It will hurt the underdeveloped areas. Both Manhattan and the boroughs will suffer because there will be no incentive to develop those areas[ldots]and discourage developers from building in lower density neighborhoods."

Of course, the text was written to maintain the current character of the neighborhoods, a theory that Kondylis scoffs at.

"You have to inject new life for the city to live-it's not an empty shell like Venice, which is a dead empty shell that is protected from development."

Owners who believe the new regulations will not apply to them may be in for a huge economic surprise as its effects are slowly uncovered. Cultural, medical and educational institutions and the Archdiocese of New York are among the entities that are already worried.

One large educational institution is troubled the restrictions will impede its future growth, and is examining how to remold, two new buildings needed to enhance the campus area could be affected.

The value of transferable air rights is also at risk.

"By imposing very restrictive height limits and a closed envelope, it could seriously restrict the use of development rights and could prevent community facilities such as hospitals and universities from even using their existing development rights," wamed Sillerman. "Because their facilities have higher floor to floor heights, they couldn't fit within these height limits."

Additionally, Sillerman says there are many non-profits and Landmark building owners that want to retain their existing facilities but sell their air rights to neighboring sites to fund their programs or maintain their Landmark properties. "These restrictive height limits make it impossible to do this," he said.

As universities need to serve many uses and the rising student populations within these buildings, smaller envelopes will limit above ground spaces for new classrooms, laboratories, dormitories, libraries, theater facilities, gymnasiums and student centers.

Going down could "dramatically" increase the cost of the project, said Coletti, who added, "You don't know what you will find, and you have to be a lot more careful about researching what is under there."

Rather than going up, where practical, architects may be forced to create more usable space underground.

Kondylis, who has designed many residential projects including Trump World Tower, the 861-foot luxury residential building now rising near the United Nations that caused an outcry resulting in the proposed zoning text amendments, is a booster of tall and slender construction.

"The lower, squat building casts a longer shadow," he explained. "The taller, slender building creates a needle of a shadow - like. a sundial - that quickly moves away."

Kondylis explained that if the buyers of the Trump World Tower units were buying individual homes, the effects on the environment would be far greater, perhaps taking up and impacting as many as 200 acres, rather than essentially a small portion of one Midtown Manhattan block.

"Towers and tall buildings define our skyline," Spinola said to the Planning Board. "They represent our city's economic vitality and symbolize our optimistic vision of the future. Towers permit greater light and air to the street and when developed with air rights they preserve frequently the low scale of existing churches, schools and. Landmarked buildings."

The new text would require more streetwalls, banishing the "tower in the park" concept that created plazas through out the city. But mandated streetwalls create inefficient apartment layouts and reduce enhanced street landscaping.

Peter L. DiCapua, senior vice president of Atco Properties & Management, said, "I understand why [Planning Commissioner] Joe Rose wants to do this, and I'm not philosophically opposed to the reasons, but there are problems with the way you have to redesign buildings."

Community activists and watchdog groups have their own concerns.

All but one community board in the city voted in favor of the project. That one, Community Board 7 on Manhattan's West Side, is among the more sophisticated of the boards, having fought through the numerous documents and planning meetings held on the Coliseum redevelopment, multiple Trump buildings, and Millennium's Lincoln Square projects.

But CB 7 believes that While the height limits are confusing and often contradictory, it is concerned the buildings will be too high in R7-2 and R8 zones; the rules don't adjust bonus allotments for inclusionary housing to account for the new building envelopes; inadequately defines and regulates space for mechanical equipment and bulkheads; and allows higher bulk limits for inadequately defined community facilities.

That board also complains the proposed amendment does not go far enough in its changes and ignores density and use, nor does it allay their concerns over zoning lot mergers.

The Municipal Art Society likes the idea of changing the zoning text and of restricting zoning lot mergers.

"The intent was never to aggregate everyone's air rights on the block and pile them on one piece," said Philip K. Howard, an attorney who is the group's chairman. "This proposal tends to limit the amount of transfers onto an empty lot."

The MAS believes there should be even further height restrictions in the mid-block townhome areas, and would like restrictions on community facilities and the use of mechanical space.

"Under zoning you could build a building to the moon if it were all mechanical space," advised Howard.

Both the real estate industry and the community groups are troubled by the concept of an Advisory Design Panel that would grant exceptions for yet to be defined architectural excellence and would require going through the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP).

"There ought to be enough flexibility in the law so that developers and architects can come up with other proposals so long as they preserve the density, and don't have to go through ULURP," said Howard. "Certainly not for a design change. We would favor more flexibility, including for higher buildings."

While many small communities have architectural review boards that micro manage home, design, suggesting, for instance, where skylights should be placed, the proposed panel would be casting judgement on buildings that are allegedly so architecturally important that they should not be bound by height or size limitations.

What developer/patron will support the development of such a design, not knowing if the project would pass muster with the architect's peers. And what architects would step forward to negate a colleagues work, worried their own project would be later dissed out of spite?

Architect Marilyn Jordan Taylor, of Skidmore Ownings Merrill said, "The way that they have done it, with everything going to design review - it's not a good way out of this box. It's a great idea to have simpler zoning but it's really hard to do in practice.

After extensive review of the proposal and how it would apply to individual sites REBNY has concluded the Unified Bulk Program has "serious practical impediments" to new development and renovation activity that would stifle economic growth.

"The new rules have also raised a number of technical programs that would thwart efficient building design and architectural excellence," Spinola said.

Spinola advised owners should immediately send a letter to the Planning Department expressing their objections to the proposed height limits and the changes encompassed by the Uniform Bulk Program. Zoning Text Amendment.

City Planning officials say if any changes are made, they will be made after the. borough presidents testify at another public hearing that will take place on Tuesday, May 23rd beginning at 10 am.

"Every generation should be able to express itself artistically and architecturally," said Kondylis. "You have to allow for the growth of the city or the city will be frozen and the city will decline."