A thornier problem, Mr. Bergman said, is the fact that most of the neighborhood is still zoned for manufacturing, which makes more new residential construction difficult.
Running roughly from Gansevoort to 14th Street, from Hudson Street to 10th Avenue, the district is still zoned for manufacturing, which means new homes typically aren't allowed.
Residential conversions are allowed in most commercial areas designated for retail and office space, but they are trickier in districts zoned for manufacturing, which can encompass everything from factories to film production studios.
The tract is zoned for farms, which would allow barely a dozen homes to be built.
For the 15 acres on which the big houses would be constructed, Mr. Mediavilla is asking a change to zoning for garden apartments, which allows 14.5 units per acre, from the current zoning of one-acre residential.
Part of the problem in Montreal was that there was no zoning for agricultural buildings, which meant that getting the permits required for Lufa Farms took time and intense negotiation with the city.
Working with other property owners south of the freeway, Madison Marquette is also seeking to allow more flexibility than is permitted under current zoning for the area, which limits building heights to 45 feet.
Ms. Burden's belief in contextual zoning, for example, under which new developments in a neighborhood are required to be in the height and style of surrounding structures, leads to "profoundly conservative building," said Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the Regional Plan Association and director of its Center for Urban Innovation.
"Holy mackerel, that's so inaccurate," the spokeswoman, Katherine P. Marsh, said of the report, noting that 26,000 of the district's 179,000 students last year chose to attend a school other than the one for which they were zoned.
The City Planning Commission intends to rule next month on the application for a zoning variance, which the project will need.
