City Council: Preserve Manufacturing Land & Jobs

 

Last month, the City Council released an important report entitled Engines of Opportunity: Reinvigorating New York City’s Manufacturing Zones for the 21st Century, highlighting the importance of New York City’s industrial and manufacturing sector as a source of quality jobs for local residents. As the report notes, average annual wages in the manufacturing and industrial sector are nearly twice those of the retail, restaurant and hotel sectors, and “the industrial workforce in New York City is over 80% people of color and over 60% foreign-born.” Preservation and investment in the City’s industrial areas is critical for the economic growth, viability and well-being the City’s thousands of working-class and low- and moderate-income residents. ANHD applauds the City Council for bringing the issue of preserving our vital manufacturing jobs front and center.

The Council’s report is a good starting point for a conversation on how the city’s zoning and land use tools could better support and capitalize on the city’s industrial and manufacturing job sector. This discussion is particularly timely because many of the neighborhoods that house the city’s remaining industrial and manufacturing hubs are likely to be rezoned over the next several years. City rezonings could result in the loss of thousands of family-supporting jobs, or could serve as a catalyst to stabilize and expand the industrial job sector in our city.

The City’s current zoning regulations serve to undermine manufacturing businesses, by allowing lucrative but incompatible uses such as hotels and self-storage as of right in manufacturing zones. Furthermore we cannot continue the previous administration’s policies of rezoning these critical industrial areas to residential developments, especially high-end, luxury development. This not only eliminates quality manufacturing jobs on the land that is rezoned, it also encourages other manufacturing land owners to purposely under-utilize the industrial capacity of their land – hampering business expansion, job growth and industrial entrepreneurship.

There will be a constant temptation and pressure to rezone land currently zoned for industrial uses to allow for residential uses. But no housing provides affordability and stability for a family without a quality job. Investing in and protecting the City’s manufacturing areas creates economic development benefits that target the city’s working-class and middle- and low-income residents, especially in in low-income, minority, or immigrant neighborhoods. ANHD and our members, look forward to working with the City Council and the de Blasio Administration to achieve

No Net Loss of Manufacturing Space and to protect the Engines of Opportunity that drive the economy with quality jobs for thousands of New Yorkers.

 

Blog team: Benjamin Dulchin, Jonathan Furlong, Moses Gates, Emily Goldstein, Ericka Stallings, Jaime Weisberg, Barika X. Williams. Editor, Anne Troy.