Rampant development in New York is killing the character of Second Avenue

Here’s a modest suggestion that might make me laugh from commercial real estate journalism:

If the construction of a new luxury apartment tower displaces modest little restaurants at sidewalk level—as happens up and down Second Avenue on the Upper East Side, typical of many of Manhattan’s busy streets—the eventual new tower must also accommodate modest little ones Restaurants have restaurants when they’re ready. Even if that means giving rent discounts to cafe owners who otherwise couldn’t afford to be there.

Otherwise, the developer won’t get a zoning variance to build ever taller (which many projects require) and a certificate of occupancy from the building department, which everyone requires.

Wait! You ask: Shouldn’t landlords have the right to rent out their retail space as they please? Is free-market supporter Cuozzo suddenly calling for rent control or an unconstitutional “taking of property”?

Barely. The zoning code is already complex enough to add a rule or two without turning the Big Apple into a Marxist re-education camp.

Current zoning regulations go far beyond banning Ferris wheels on Madison Avenue.

They are instruments of political and social manipulation – sometimes with pleasant results, sometimes not.

For example, they limit how many feet of street-front stores can have on the Upper West Side — a provision aimed at keeping out bank branches and big chain stores.

Large new buildings in the theater district must reserve five percent of their space for entertainment purposes and install many elaborately installed bright lights.

New homes must have a large number of parking spaces, even as the city pushes people to use public transportation instead of cars. Many garment center properties are required to dedicate a certain percentage of space to apparel manufacturing—even though there is almost no demand for apparel manufacturing space in Manhattan these days.

But there is an immense and overwhelming demand for small restaurants of all cuisines on Second Avenue, as is the case in many other neighborhoods undergoing large-scale redevelopment. There is every reason for the city to use its zoning powers to protect them.

Second Avenue on the Upper East Side still offers a myriad of cuisines – Italian, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Persian, Middle Eastern and Chinese.

A Guatemalan/Mayan site has just replaced an Indian site that had previously replaced a Burmese site.

But for how long?

Gastronomy is an integral part of the neighborhood fabric.

People will spend millions of dollars on a condo at Naftali Group’s up-and-coming 255 E. 77th St., not for the dubious prestige of living on a truck- and bus-clogged Second Avenue, but for the sake of it (slowly dwindling supply of opportunities to take advantage of global tastes at their feet.

The introduction of the Q subway line triggered a development boom.

Small corner buildings are falling like dominoes between East 67th Street and East 86th Street or are on the verge of collapse. The most vulnerable are 19th-century tenements with low retail rents that owners of small Asian, South American and Middle Eastern restaurants can afford.

So many luxury towers are rising that Second Avenue could one day resemble the increasingly sterile Third Avenue, where storefronts that once housed small restaurants and shops are now filled with beauty salons, human and dog spas, laser clinics and walk-in shops Doctor’s offices.

A few years ago, the eviction of the luxury condo tower on the northwest corner of Second Avenue and East 74th Street swallowed up five popular restaurants — Italian, Irish, Afghan, Turkish and Moroccan — all at once.

Demolition plans for a project on East 77th Street displaced Japanese eatery Sushi Hana and Hi-Life Lounge. A more recent plan on East 73d Street called for the eviction of French bistro Jean Claude, Afghan Kebab House and elegant Italian eatery Il Divo.

A new tower on East 78th Street has brought Sable’s Smoked Fish and Lenwich sandwiches to a halt.

Next in the crosshairs is the Vietnamese cafe Two Wheels on the west corner of East 71st Street, where the small building’s new owner is pushing out one retail tenant after another.

Restaurant owners who want to stay in the neighborhood face a difficult decision: either move to higher-rent Third Avenue, as Sable’s and Lenwich did, or to lower-traffic First Avenue, as Zucchero e Pomodoro did and is within one year closed. Afghan Kebab just followed the Italian restaurant to this possibly doomed location.

What’s worse is that construction has not yet begun at many of the locations where restaurants were forced to close.

They remain holes in the ground or empty while developers wait for construction loans.

Very few Second Avenue developers had the foresight and resources to lease valuable sidewalk-level space to restaurants—like La Pecora Bianca at 1562 Second Ave. and Blue Mezze at 1480 Second Ave.

They are rare exceptions to the favoritism given to bank branches, which pay astronomical rents and are viewed by landlords as “clean” uses that don’t attract vermin.

But on the demolition signs are the words of the prophets.

The city should act before Second Avenue, still Uptown’s busiest street for strolling and dining, faces a shortage of restaurants.