Tag Archives: east harlem

East Harlem Stakeholders Demand No Vote at CPC Rezoning Hearing

Citing the City’s Divergence from the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan, Residents and Stakeholders Urge the City Planning Commission to Vote No on the East Harlem Rezoning

On Wednesday afternoon, at a packed venue, the City Planning Commission (CPC) held their public hearing on the proposed East Harlem rezoning. The CPC hearing comes after both Community Board 11 and Gale Brewer, the Manhattan Borough President, voted no on the proposed rezoning, and the bulk of the testimony heard from the East Harlem community on Wednesday strongly encouraged the CPC to do the same. 

In East Harlem the process preceding The Department of City Planning (DCP)’s proposed rezoning started with the promise of a new, community-driven planning model, with the community unveiling its own neighborhood plan in advance of the City. This plan was started in 2015 when City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito brought together local stakeholders in the formation of a steering committee tasked with crafting a comprehensive plan identifying the neighborhood’s goals and needs. After months of community engagement, consensus-building, and dedicated work, the steering committee – led by the Speaker’s Office, Community Board, Community Voices Heard (CVH), and Borough President Brewer – unveiled their vision with the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan (EHNP), including a broad set of demands across 232 recommendations. While many participants have stressed that the final product still needs improvement, the idea was that DCP would work with the community to improve the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan and make it a reality. Instead, the feeling from the community, Community Board, and Borough President’s Office is that the EHNP has been largely ignored.

This is why the Community Board voted no to the rezoning, with recommendations, and why Gale Brewer voted a firmer no, with no recommendations. This is why CVH members and other East Harlem residents came out in force to demand the CPC vote no. As one CVH member put it, “This is about the life and death of East Harlem. I don’t know how DCP could come up with a plan totally opposite of what the community proposed.” Speakers pointed out that DCP’s plan allows much higher density than the EHNP and does not include adequate anti-displacement protections for existing tenants, appropriate investments for NYCHA properties that are in dire need, and the creation of truly affordable housing that meets the income requirements of current East Harlem residents – all priorities clearly laid out in the EHNP.

The de Blasio administration has claimed that it’s interested in a more comprehensive approach to neighborhood rezonings – one that meaningfully involves communities in the planning process to better ensure the priorities of local residents are met. If they’re serious about this, then East Harlem is a chance to get it right. The CPC should heed the call of the community and its representatives and vote no. The City still has time to step back and ensure that the priorities laid out by the community – through much time and effort – are met. Whether this happens through a rezoning, or other City actions, is less important than respecting the community’s vision and working with them to help make it a reality.

Christopher Walters, ANHD’s Rezoning Technical Assistance Coordinator

New Map of Preferential Rents Shows the Displacement Risk for Rezoning Neighborhoods and Low Income Communities City-wide

Last week, ProPublica launched a new tool mapping the number of rent stabilized apartments with preferential rents by zip code, throughout New York City. The results are eye-opening. Almost a third of all rent stabilized apartments in New York currently have preferential rents: over 250,000 units citywide. That’s over 250,000 households that do not truly enjoy the protections of rent stabilization. That’s over 250,000 households that are at risk of displacement, especially in low-income communities.

The use of preferential rents directly undercuts the protection and stability rent stabilization is intended to provide, leaving tenants vulnerable to large rent increases at every lease renewal, regardless of the rates permitted by the Rent Guidelines Board.  Especially troublesome is the prevalence of preferential rents in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Six of the ten New York City zip codes with the most preferential rents are in the Bronx, with poverty rates in those areas ranging from 30 to 43 percent – a population that cannot afford a big rent increase.

Of equal concern is the fact that many of these neighborhoods with high numbers of preferential rents are in areas where the de Blasio administration has proposed large-scale rezonings, further exacerbating the risk of displacement. This is a risk the City does not adequately address. The city is mandated to consider how a rezoning could impact current residents, including potential displacement. And yet, when considering displacement risks, the City excludes rent stabilized tenants from their analysis, under the erroneous assumption that their tenancy is secure. The prevalence of apartments with preferential rents shows just how wrong this is.

Take East Harlem as an example, which is currently going through ULURP for a neighborhood rezoning. In its Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the City found no adverse impacts due to secondary displacement. But again, the City did not consider rent stabilized tenants in their analysis. According to ProPublica there are close to 5,000 apartments with preferential rents in the two zip codes that include East Harlem. This means almost 5,000 families are not subject to the limits on a rent increase that rent stabilized tenants depend on. How can these 5,000 families be considered secure in their apartment then, or free from displacement risk? As land values and rents increase following the rezoning, there’s nothing to stop a landlord from raising the rent to a level that might force a tenant out.

The same concern exists around the proposed Jerome Avenue rezoning in the South Bronx, where there are close to 9,000 apartments with preferential rents in the two zip codes spanning the area – two zip codes with poverty rates over 40%. The same concern exists in Inwood, or Bushwick, and the list goes on. These are by far not the only households at risk of displacement, both in these rezoning neighborhoods and throughout the city. But these are households we know are at risk just from preferential rents alone.

The goal of the de Blasio administration’s Housing New York plan is to both construct and preserve affordable housing. Rent stabilized housing makes up the largest portion of our city’s existing affordable housing stock. The new data on preferential rents illuminates once again the vulnerability of rent stabilized tenants, and the need to place protections for existing residents and preservation of existing affordable housing at the center of any affordable housing plan intended to actually address the affordability crisis facing our city.

East Harlem Residents Push Back on City Rezoning Plan at Packed Community Board Hearing

This is among the questions community residents and local organizations raised over and over again last night. In addressing their issues and concerns around DCP’s plan, speakers stressed the numerous ways it differs from the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan. These include, most pressingly, questions around the affordability of new construction, particularly on public land, and the need for strong housing preservation strategies. The EHNP includes recommendations for permanent and deeply affordable units on public sites using locally based non-profit developers and community land trusts to help achieve these goals – a key aspect of the plan’s overall call for 50% of all new housing in the neighborhood to be affordable. The plan calls for a Certificate of No Harassment program (CONH) to be put in place in East Harlem. The plan also calls for a $200 million investment in NYCHA repairs and preservation in the neighborhood as a down payment for the $1 billion local need. These are just some of the key priorities the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan puts forward that are all unfortunately absent from DCP’s current rezoning plan in any meaningful fashion. These are all key priorities that community members stressed had to be included before the City’s plans could move forward. In addition, speakers highlighted that DCP’s proposed zoning includes significantly higher densities than the EHNP recommended.

Community members and organizations engaged in the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan in a good faith effort to find solutions for the neighborhood’s needs. They gave their time and energy to make this happen. As one Community Voices Heard member put it, “I feel like the City is ignoring two years of visioning sessions, and man, that feels like I wasted my time.” This shouldn’t be the case. ANHD believes in community-based planning as a way to provide local residents meaningful control over the future of their neighborhoods. This doesn’t mean the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan cannot be strengthened and made more reflective of what the community needs; it can and it should be. But what shouldn’t happen is the City paying lip service to the EHNP while making its recommendations weaker. East Harlem is a chance to get it right and set a new standard for neighborhood rezonings moving forward citywide. The groundwork has been laid already. Now the City must ensure it hasn’t been in vain.