With things heating up at the City Council #CityOfYes hearings, let's dig into some more details of the proposal regarding changes to rear yard requirements, which City of Yes reduces from 30 foot to 20 foot minimum for buildings under 75' tall.
Although we 'typically' limit the depth of our apartment buildings to an efficient 55-60 feet, and have no issue with the 30' rear yard, in NYC you rarely get to design 'typical' buildings.
Over the years we have run into a number of scenarios where the smaller rear yard would have helped us out:
1️⃣ Assemblages of multiple lots, which include floor area transfer from existing buildings. On these deals, we have to stuff additional floor area onto a lot, and often find ourselves pushing up against a height limit. The smaller rear yard allows us make larger floor plates, and fit in all of the FAR.
2️⃣ 75' is sort a magic number in NYC construction, because over that height the DOB imposes additional safety requirements that can significantly increase the cost of construction. In this case, larger floorplates means shorter, less expensive buildings. The same goes for 5-story buildings, which require elevators, as opposed to 4-story or less, which you can design as a walk-up.
3️⃣ Commercial-to-Residential conversions. Typical Commercial zoning has always had a 20' rear yard, so matching Residential up with the same dimension increases the number of office buildings eligible as-of-right, to convert to multi-family. Otherwise you often have issues providing legal windows for light and air.