A new residential rental building on the Upper East Side is joining a growing trend in the city by going smoke free. NY1's Shazia Khan filed the following report.
Jump to full article: NY1 (Time Warner Cable), 2009-11-29
Author: Shazia Khan
Intro: A breath of fresh air. That's what one developer is offering New Yorkers at 1510 Lexington Avenue. The new luxury rental high-rise is the first residential building in the city to ban smoking in all its units as well as its public spaces.
Tenants and their visitors are also banned from smoking within 25 feet of the building. Developers Kinnie Yon and her brother Neal Sigety are principals at Kenbar Management. They say the decision to go non smoking in the development came with the choice to acquire LEED certification, the benchmark for green buildings.
"As part of LEEDs there is a requirement that you control tobacco smoke so that it doesn't infiltrate other apartments in the building, and we said we're building this LEED certified green healthy building why do we even allow smoking?" Yon said.
The 298 unit rent stabilized building, ranging from studios to three bedrooms, is slated to open next month. . . .
"If you are a smoker and you want to smoke at home, there are many buildings that would love to have you as a tenant today and that we believe that people who would like to live in a non smoking environment should also have a place," Sigety said. . . .
Citing health concerns over secondhand smoke, 1510 Lexington is not alone in the movement to ban smoking at home. Other buildings like the Tribeca Green in Battery Park City have started to take similar measures
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