MTA to partner with private developers for more subway-station elevators
Disabled-accessibility plan keys on zoning incentives
At Brooklyn’s Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets subway station on Friday, the MTA announced “Elevate Transit: Zoning for Accessibility,” a program to partner with private developers to design their buildings to include new elevators, new entrances and other accessible features leading to subway stations.
Briefly speaking, the developers who include elevators and other accessibility improvements would get the right to build denser, or higher, buildings than they would normally able to build under zoning restrictions. In the highest-density district, this “density bonus” to offset the cost of construction could be as much as 20 percent.
In return, the builders would have to provide an easement, or permanent access to a piece of property that would give the MTA access to work at the site. Because the access that the easement provides, the city would be spared the huge costs of temporarily relocating underground pipes, cables and so on, according to the MTA.