Citywide Mechanical Voids Text Amendment

On May 29, 2019, the City Council adopted a zoning text amendment to count certain mechanical voids as zoning floor area in residential towers.

The amendment does not prohibit any mechanical space outright; instead, it requires that mechanical floors exceeding a height of 25 feet be counted as zoning floor area. Additionally, such mechanical floors will count toward zoning floor area if they are located within 75 feet of one another and exceed 25 feet in height in the aggregate. Above the 25-foot threshold, the number of stories of floor area is calculated by aggregating the total height of such spaces, dividing by 25 and rounding to the nearest whole integer. For example, a 40-foot mechanical void would count as two floors of floor area (40/25 = 1.6, rounded to the closest whole number equals two).