City Site Plan Review (§27-a)

N.Y. General City Law § 27-a

Part of General City Law Article 3, this section authorizes a city's legislative body, as part of a zoning ordinance or local law, to empower its planning board or another designated administrative body to review and approve, approve with modifications, or disapprove site plans for proposed land uses, subject to reasonable conditions and restrictions and to compliance with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (Article 8 of the Environmental Conservation Law). Together with General City Law § 20, which grants cities the underlying power to divide the city into districts and to regulate building height, bulk, and location (subd. 24) and the location of trades, industries, and uses (subd. 25), it provides the statutory basis for municipal site plan control in cities; the section does not apply to any city with a population over one million (New York City).