The design must also blend into the low-rise residential neighborhood.

Largely unspoiled by development, the planned community of Norwood Gardens is still a low-rise residential neighborhood.

But residents say the college's future should not rest on the demise of their low-rise neighborhood.

Building heights would step down, with the tallest closest to the water, decreasing as they moved inland to the height of the existing low-rise neighborhoods.

"It's going to remain an accessible and largely low-rise neighborhood," he said.

Opponents of the plan have pressed for a more dramatic downscaling, pointing to the contrast with the surrounding, low-rise neighborhoods.

Most of the industry's studios are in Surulere, a low-rise neighborhood with dirty white two-story villas.

West Chelsea is primarily a low-rise neighborhood, with a mixture of old industrial style buildings juxtaposed with edgy new development.

A dozen blocks south of the park on Halsey Street, a low-rise neighborhood that once teemed with small shops now is largely forlorn after nightfall.

From an urban design perspective alone, their size and placement is vastly out of scale, especially in older, relatively low-rise neighborhoods like NoHo.