SoHo Bulletins – 2020

December 20, 2020

SLA Denies Liquor License for Huge Food Hall / Covid Rent Relief

Scores of people representing 65 groups throughout the city braved last Wednsday’s snow storm to protest Mayor de Blasio’s rezonings of their communities. 

From Inwood to the Seaport, from Gowanus to Flushing, and numerous spots in between, speaker after speaker railed against de Blasio’s giveaway to his developer friends and contributors in his lame duck term.  Below is a full report and photos from The Village Sun that you can read here. 

‘Stop racist rezonings,’ cry community groups from across the city 

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Soho and Noho may be only the latest battle, but New Yorkers have been fighting against Mayor de Blasio’s rezonings for years and across many different neighborhoods. On Wednesday, community groups from around the city rallied right outside City Hall to declare, “Enough is enough!” In the bitter cold, speaker after speaker charged that the rezonings — which inevitably always include an upzoning — are “racist” because they displace existing residents, who are almost always black, brown or Asian people. In effect, the rezoning plans, by flooding neighborhoods with market-rate housing, are gentrification on steroids, the speakers said. Now, however, with de Blasio a lame duck and about to enter his last year in office, City Hall is making a final push to ram through as many of his rezonings as possible. 

 But in a “Community Declaration on the Future of New York,” the activists instead proclaim that it’s high time to “stop all rezonings [and] reinvent the rigged land-use process to allow for legitimate community-led planning instead of imposing ‘done deal’ developments.” Their statement urges politicians, candidates and all New Yorkers to “reject the housing policy that is based on enormous giveaways to luxury real estate developers in exchange for a small percentage of dubiously named ‘affordable’ housing. Stop the use of ‘affordable’ as a safe word,” the statement says, “to justify towerization or as a substitute for real, multigenerational affordability for low-income people.” Furthermore, their manifesto says, “No land-use review process should be allowed to use ‘virtual’ meetings — such as Zoom — as a substitute for public hearings.” The statement is signed by 65 organizations, from 9th St. A-1 Block Association, Lower East Side Dwellers and South Village Neighbors to Crown Heights Tenants Union, Stop Sunnyside Yards, Mexicanos Unidos and Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGG). Speaking at the rally, Jack Riccobono, of Voice of Gowanus, railed against the mayor’s rezoning plan for his Brooklyn turf.“They want to blanket our neighborhood with 22-to-30-story luxury towers,” he said, noting that this rezoning would be twice as massive as the one for Hudson Yards. But a rezoning in the former industrial area makes even less sense because of environmental reasons, Riccobono added. “It’s not a good idea to bring 22,000 people into an E.P.A. superfund site, one of the most toxic sites in the state,” he warned, adding that Gowanus was also badly flooded during Hurricane Sandy eight years ago. “This process is totally broken,” he said. Dannelly Rodriguez, of the Justice for All Coalition and Democratic Socialists of America, decried the Flushing rezoning plan, in particular, and all rezonings, in general. He condemned what he called “rubber-stamping ULURP policies.”“The rezoning policies in New York State have been racist and classist,” he charged.“They want to build more housing that we can’t afford, when we’re in the biggest eviction crisis in our city’s history,” he said, incredulously.Rodriguez noted that the very spot the rally was being held on had been an “autonomous zone” this past summer when it was taken over by Occupy City Hall.“They evicted us from here, too!” he said, indignantly. Rodriguez slammed the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, under which rezonings allow developers to construct larger market-rate buildings, as long as they include a percentage of affordable units. The city claims this is the only way affordable housing can be built nowadays since these projects incentivize developers with the carrot of profits.“They love spewing this capitalist neoliberal…that they need access to capital,” Rodriguez scoffed of the M.I.H. scheme. “What they need to do is tax the damn rich! “Abolish this ULURP crap, yo!” he added. “And forget about this ‘input’ crap. If the community says ‘no,’ they mean ‘no’! And [then] go home!”Rodriguez then ticked off a list of city councilmembers he dubbed “so-called progressives” who, in fact, have supported the rezonings. Number one on his list was the East Village’s Carlina Rivera, followed by Diana Ayala, Farah Louis, Francisco Moya, Justin Brannan, Ben Kallos, Keith Powers, Mark Levine, Antonio Reynoso and Vanessa Gibson.“You can’t say ‘Black Lives Matter’ but then vote for policies that are against that,” he chided. “It’s over for that.” 

        Sean Sweeney said City Hall is “using Soho” to try to further its rezoning agenda. (Photo by The Village Sun) Sean Sweeney, the director of the Soho Alliance, accused the mayor of “using Soho to justify rezonings.” Basically, the de Blasio administration and Open New York, a thinly veiled developer-driven advocacy group, argue that Soho and Noho must have more affordable units and more racial diversity “to do their share.” “Yes, Soho is 85 percent white,” Sweeney acknowledged, “but there’s a fund, so the affordable housing could be built in other neighborhoods.”In other words, as Sweeney indicated, the affordable housing that would be linked to an M.I.H. plan for Soho and Noho would not actually have to get built specifically in those areas. Also, the activist said, never before in New York City since the creation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965, has City Hall dared to upzone a designated historic district, such as Soho and Noho. “They want to do away with 50 years of landmarking so Bill de Blasio can satisfy his campaign donors,” Sweeney protested. Finally, he said, it’s time to pull the plug on the current use of Zoom meetings on such critical land-use issues as rezonings.“This is a public meeting,” Sweeney declared of the activists gathered on the blustery plaza. “Do away with Zoom meetings — that’s bulls—!” Sweeney recently led an effort within the Downtown Independent Democrats political club to withhold its endorsement of Carlina Rivera for reelection until she answered whether she supports upzonings in historic districts. (Rivera’s District 3 contains half of Noho.) Nevertheless, D.I.D. subsequently recently did endorse Rivera, who so far is running unopposed, even though she had not yet held a promised follow-up meeting with club members, at which it was hoped she would clarify her position. Speaking out against another project in a Lower Manhattan historic district was Stacey Shub, of Save Our Seaport. Howard Hughes Corporation is seeking to build two megatowers — larger than would normally be allowed — on a parking lot there, right next to two schools. Lina Melendez, of Northern Manhattan Not For Sale, said residents are still fighting the city’s Inwood upzoning plan. The struggle now is continuing in federal court. A common complaint about the M.I.H. projects is that the affordable housing in them is not really very affordable. Melendez said that, when affordable housing rents are determined, instead of basing them on area median income, the more accurate community media income should be used. Like other speakers she also slammed the ULURP review process, charging that the premise of public input is a charade.“Once that ULURP is announced,” she said, “that deal is cut. … The money is slipped under the table.” 

Stacey Shub, of Save Our Seaport, spoke against the Howard Hughes Corporation’s plan for a massive residential project in the historic Seaport area. (Photo Village Sun) Other speakers condemned plans that would overshadow the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with new residential towers or develop a major site in Sunset Park as a Plan B after the defeat of the Industry City rezoning. The list went on and on. Chris Marte, a candidate for City Council in Lower Manhattan’s District 1, stood in the crowd listening to the speakers from the community groups. He shared some of his thoughts on the hot-button topic with The Village Sun. “It’s crazy. I think they’re trying to get everything in before the end of the administration,” he said of the city’s push on rezonings.“Why during a pandemic are we forcing all these rezonings?” he asked. “It’s because they have no certainty about the next City Council and the next mayor, so they’re trying to get everything through. It’s disappointing.” For his part, Marte said he supports the Alternative Community Rezoning plan for Soho and Noho, which has no upzoning, plus more and deeper affordability than the city’s plan.The City Council candidate also noted that yet another new rezoning — for Governors Island — is coming down the pike for District 1. The plan could include up to 30-story buildings.“They’re using the excuse of having a science center,” he said, “but it could lead to building hotels there and commercial retail spaces.” Roger Manning, a co-leader of Metro Area Governors Island Coalition, or MAGIC, said the new group formed only about a month ago.“It’s a refuge for New Yorkers,” he said of the island. “It’s a park. It’s accessible to all New Yorkers. It’s public land — they’re trying to sell it off.” 

Zishun Ning slammed the city for rejecting the Chinatown Working Group’s grassroots-generated rezoning plan. (Photo by The Village Sun) Meanwhile, Zishun Ning, a member of Lower East Side Organized Neighbors (LESON), said the one time the community actually presented a real grassroots rezoning plan, by the Chinatown Working Group, the city snubbed it. “We are so sick and tired of the displacement agenda and of the racist agenda,” he said. “And we are so sick and tired of Mayor de Blasio and this City Council.”Ning then called out, one by one, the names of neighborhoods around the city facing zoning projects — from Soho and Noho to East Harlem, Jackson Heights and the South Bronx — with the crowd shouting after each one, “Not for sale!” Ning concluded the list, his voice rising to a crescendo, “New York City — Not for sale! New York City — Not for sale!” as the activists shouted along and cheered in agreement. In addition to rezonings, another de Blasio mega-plan was on the mind of at least one person in the crowd. Standing with a protest sign in her bicycle’s front basket, Barbara Katz Rothman said she was with East River Park ACTION. The group is fighting the city’s East Side Coastal Resiliency plan, which would bury East River Park under 8 to 9 feet of infill dirt to turn it into a massive flood barrier. 

Barbara Katz Rothman is a member of East River Park ACTION but she is clearly concerned about other areas of Downtown, as well. (Photo by The Village Sun) Katz Rothman said her main concern was the impact the project would have on local asthma rates. Residents living in public housing near the park already have high rates of asthma and lead poisoning, she noted.“A decade of tearing down and rebuilding that park,” she said, “lots of particulate matter will be in the air.”

Update!

11:30 AM  Dec.  3, 2020

Zoom Meeting December 3  The Department of City Planning (DCP) still has not uploaded their link to this afternoon’s Zoom public environmental scoping meeting regarding the SoHo/NoHo upzoning — although the agency has had a month to do so.   However, community sleuths have since found that there is a work-around. Click onto this “private” DCP webpage here. It will bring you to a site to register for the meeting. The Meeting ID is 952 5365 9088 and the Password is 1 We have also learned that the public can register for the meeting starting at 1:00 pm today — a mere hour before it starts!!  The link for that is https://www1.nyc.gov/events/city-planning-scoping-meeting-for-the-soho-noho-neighborhood-plan/287118/1   You will be given a couple of minutes to speak.  Immediately, for the record, please state that you are opposed to the DCP’s plan and opposed to upzoning. Then comment the environmental impact this plan would engender.

 December  2, 2020

SLA Denies Liquor License for Huge Food Hall / Covid Rent ReliefAs previously announced, the first step in de Blasio’s proposal to upzoning SoHo/NoHo – a public “Scoping” meeting — will take place, Thursday, December 3, from 2:00 to 5:00 pm via Zoom. The Department of City Planning (DCP) will conduct this critical meeting to solicit your input for the Scope of Work to be included in its Draft Environmental Impact Statement that the agency will prepare regarding the environmental impacts of its upzoning proposal.  Incredibly, as if to deliberately frustrate any attempts at participatory democracy, DCP refuses to supply us with the link to the Zoom meeting until the day of the meeting.  For example, the link on DCP’s website to join the meeting currently yields: The Site You Requested Is Invalid.  https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycengage We are hoping DCP will have it activated by Thursday morning. Please attempt it then. We shall also email you the link via email as soon as it goes up on the DCP website. Here is the link to the Draft Scope of Work: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/applicants/env-review/soho-noho/soho-noho-draft-scope-work.pdfIt is 55 pages, mostly boilerplate. The crucial parts go through page 16 to 25.   De Blasio’s plan — and his gift to the developers who have given handsomely to his campaigns — will allow:– a 240% height and bulk increase for construction outside the Historic District: buildings almost 300 feet tall– an almost doubling of the building height and bulk within the Historic Districts along Broadway and Lafayette Street – a 20% increase in the height and bulk for the rest of the Historic District. This is the first time in the 55-year history of the Landmarks Preservation Commission that any upzoning has been attempted in an Historic District. The plan pushes heavily for increased office space, attempting to convert SoHo/NoHo into a Central Business District. This means the influx of thousands of office workers into our already congested neighborhood.  It also calls for the introduction of big-box retails stores like Target, Home Depot, etc.  Where will all these new office workers and shoppers fit?   What will be their environmental impact on sewage, infrastructure, sanitation and waste removal, public transportation, police and fire services, schools, open green space, vehicular and pedestrian congestion, air pollution, quality of life, to list just a few? The plan also calls for about 3,200 new residential units, about 2,400 of which will be luxury, with no guarantee that the remaining 800 “affordable” units will ever be built. Nevertheless, allocating just two residents for each unit, results in at least 6,400 new residents. SoHo currently has fewer than 8,000 residents. That increase represents an almost doubling of the population.   What will be their environmental impact on sewage, infrastructure, sanitation and waste removal, public transportation, police and fire services, schools, open green space, vehicular and pedestrian congestion, air pollution, quality of life, etc.? You will be given about two minutes to comment. If you do not want to comment, or are unable to attend, you have until December 18 to email your comments to:  21DCP059M_DL@planning.nyc.gov  Please keep your comments focused on the environmental impacts and the process itself.  For example: – the environmental impact of tens of thousands more people  – the environmental problems on our antiquated sewage system of thousands of new residents flushing their toilets and showering in the morning getting ready for work. We recall raw sewage backing up on West Broadway during past storm run-offs. The same problems apply to thousands of new office workers straining our waste system all day. – much of SoHo is in a flood plain. Hurricane Sandy brought flood waters up to Wooster Street and halfway up to Broome Street.  What mitigation for new  construction has the city planned to deal with these flooding problems? – thousands of wealthy new residents will need their automobiles.  Where will they park?  How much pollution will they generate? Remember, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency has listed Canal Street having some of the worst pollution levels in the country – there are no schools in SoHo/NoHo. Where will all the new kids be educated?   – more people will require more police and fire services.  Yet the upzoning proposal ignores this reality.  – Zoom meetings are not true public meetings. Rezonings are not mandated by law. Surely during a pandemic, this upzoning can be postponed until we can have true public meetings in person, and not in the Cloud. Demand a postponement. – to accurately measure  the impacts on the environment, DCP needs to collect real-time data on pedestrian counts, vehicular traffic counts, public transportation usage, etc. However, due to covid, we know that SoHo/NoHo retail activity is a shadow of its former self, and a shadow of what it will be when things return to normal.  So, any data collected now will not reflect the reality of what will be in the near future and thus will be grossly inaccurate. Demand a postponement. What’s the rush, de Blasio? CLICK HERE

November 23, 2020

SoHo/NoHo Zoning Plan Released / Public Zoom Meeting December

By now you probably have heard about the developer-driven upzoning scheme from Mayor de Blasio. His Department of City Planning (DCP) has released a 55-page proposal that basically ignores all the zoning meetings the public and stakeholders undertook with the agency last year — instead issuing a plan far worse than we ever imagined. It is a giveaway to the real estate industry. The document is full of vague generalizations, bureaucrat gibberish, and unfounded assumptions without supporting data. It will be the main topic at a public DCP meeting in December. This meeting will address the “scope of work” needed for an Environmental Impact Statement, a document disclosing environmental impacts and mitigation. This meeting is an initial step in a upzoning process that takes a year. On December 3 at 2:00 pm, the agency will present this so-called “scoping” meeting via Zoom. Click here to register and access it.  It is important you attend. Ask questions and voice your concerns. Please register now.  https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycengage/events/city-planning-scoping-meeting-for-the-soho-noho-neighborhood/287118/1 PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS Space and time do not allow for all the terrible details and faults this lengthy document contains. Let’s just mention a few:– Massive Upzonings– No Guaranteed Affordable Housing– Extortionate Fees to Convert Existing Buildings to Legal Residences– Big Box Stores Will Push Out Galleries, Showrooms & Creative Small Businesses– Broadway “Commercial Corridor” to be Nexus between Midtown Business & Downtown Financial Districts– No Mechanism to Maintain Our Artistic/Creative Heritage  Massive UpzoningsThe plan seeks to balkanize SoHo/NoHo into several subdistricts, pitting neighbor against neighbor in a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. – Yellow zones will increase buildings’ height and bulk by 240%. That translates into buildings almost 300 feet tall.– Blue zones will increase buildings’ height and bulk up to 195%. – Purple zones will increase buildings’ height and bulk up to 30%.  Incredibly, these upzonings are almost exclusively within the existing SoHo/NoHo Historic Districts.   In the 55 years of landmarking in New York, until now there has never been an upzoning of an historic district. Bill de Blasio intends to destroy our architectural character and history to benefit his campaign contributors supporting this proposal. 

. No Guaranteed Affordable Housing

The mayor has lied repeatedly, claiming there is little or no affordable housing in SoHo/NoHo.  However, his own DCP admits in this proposal that more than half the rentals here are under $2,000 a month. That’s pretty affordable for a downtown loft space, wouldn’t you agree?  Moreover, there is nothing in his proposal that guarantees a single square-foot of affordable housing will ever be built here. A loophole permits developers to build 100% luxury housing here and then pay into a fund to build the “affordable” housing elsewhere. A bit like 3-card monte. Instead of affordable housing, we will be getting more luxury condos, further gentrification and an estimated 78% increase in our population — from the current 7,800 to 13,900 persons. Where are the schools, the infrastructure, the public amenities, the green space and the city services for an additional 6,100 new residents?  ******************************************** Huge Fees to Convert Existing Buildings to Legal ResidencesDuring last year’s many meetings to modernize our zoning, a top concern was removing the restriction that requires at least one member of a household be a certified artist. Countless buildings do not abide by this requirement and thus are in a legal limbo. The mayor’s current proposal would allow these buildings to convert to legal residential use. But at a ransom’s price!  Residential conversions under his affordability programs require payments into a fund for “affordable” housing initiatives. The rate is $1,000 per square-foot. For an existing, say, 2,500 square-foot space, the cost to convert to residential, would be $2,500,000. For a twelve-unit building of such lofts, the cost to convert would be $30 million dollars. Who can afford that?   This proposal is a joke. Most buildings would rather live in limbo than fork over millions in extortion money to de Blasio. ******************************************** Big Box Stores Will Push Out Small BusinessesThe proposal wants to legalize retail in all of SoHo. That’s one thing.  However, it also seeks to remove our long-standing prohibition against big-box stores greater than 10,000 square-feet.  That means department stores, Home Depots and the like. Think Herald Square or 23rd Street. That position is exactly what the Real Estate Board of New York, REBNY — de Blasio’s big contributors — has advocated.  The harm this proposal would do to our art galleries, creative boutiques, and design showrooms is incalculable. They cannot afford the rent multinational chain stores pay. These trendsetters would be priced out, a tragic loss.   People shop in SoHo/NoHo because they perceive it as creative, trendy, hip, artistic. That’s the SoHo/NoHo brand, worldwide. This proposal will kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  ******************************************** Broadway Commercial Corridor to Link Midtown Business & Downtown Financial DistrictsAlthough this proposal touts “affordable” housing, it actually has set-asides for massive, high-rise office development, even at the expense of housing.  For example, if an office building converts to residential, an equivalent amount of space must be developed for office uses. This is a boon for developers and hinders residential construction.  

DCP admits it wants to replace the existing zoning with “medium to high density commercial and/or mixed-use districts.” DCP wants a miles-long commercial strip from Wall Street to 59th Street, with us at its nexus.******************************************** No Mechanism to Maintain Our Artistic/Creative Heritage & Future
The proposal pays lip service to accommodating and expanding live/work and creative uses — but does not say how.   Maintaining the arts, culture and creativity was a main topic at last year’s thirty public and stakeholders meetings. Not once was upzoning mentioned. But now de Blasio ignores any real discussion on the arts and pushes upzoning. Anyone surprised?   Again, DCP will present a “scoping” Zoom meeting on December 2 at 2:00 pm. Click here to register and access it. It is important you attend. Ask questions and voice your concerns. Please register now.  https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycengage/events/city-planning-scoping-meeting-for-the-soho-noho-neighborhood/287118/1

October 24, 2020

UpZoning: First Meeting

deBlasio’s UpZoning PlandeBlasio’s Rotten FishdeBlasio Bushwhacks His Fellow Politicians This Monday, October 26, 6:00-8:00 pm, the Department of City Planning (DCP) will hold an information session explaining the public review process that is mandated as part of Mayor de Blasio’s SoHo/NoHo Upzoning Plan.  This will be the first of several meetings over the next few months. Register for the Zoom meeting here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gv_NUUJ_QIaqVDhyjSKt6APLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. We do not expect DCP will reveal many specifics at this meeting. That comes later. Instead, the agency will likely explain the land-use and environmental-review process associated with an upzoning.  It may be frustrating but we should be there. Educate yourself now and get involved if you value your community and your equity. At a subsequent meeting on December 3, DCP will kick off the formal process, providing specific details of de Blasio’s proposal. Here the public can ask questions and raise concerns.  de Blasio’s UpZoning PlanThe mayor has said he wants to upzone SoHo/NoHo to construct 75% market-rate luxury housing with a token 25% “affordable” units, specifically 2,400 luxury units with only 800 “affordable” units.  This is part of his scheme called Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH).  MIH gives developers greater height and bulk than otherwise permitted in return for including some so-called “affordable” housing units.  What de Blasio fails to tell us is that his “affordable” housing program is a system that has enabled people earning well into the six figures to live in subsidized housing.  Subsidized housing in SoHo should be 100% for the needy and the working class, not for the wealthy.   de Blasio’s Rotten FishDuring a radio interview last January, the mayor declared that a SoHo/NoHo rezoning was not going to happen. He stated that there was just not enough time left and that there too many community concerns to address during a complicated rezoning. Then covid hit and the city shut down. But someone got to him.  During a pandemic, and without the chance for a real public meetings for people to express themselves, and ten months after declaring a SoHo/NoHo rezoning dead, and with barely twelve months left in his failed administration, suddenly de Blasio is introducing this year-long public process. That stinks. We know the reputation for tardiness of this perennially-late mayor. So his sudden rush to seal his deal rots — and like a fish, his upzoning plan rots from the head down. de Blasio Bushwhacks His Fellow PoliticiansAssemblymember Deborah Glick is appalled that she was not informed.  State Senator Brad Hoylman was kept in the dark. Borough President Gale Brewer was also caught off guard.  We have learned that even Margaret Chin was not consulted and it is she who will have the final and decisive vote on de Blasio’s plan at the council. So who got to de Blasio to change his mind? 

October 13, 2020

Mayor’s Attempt to Burnish His Failed Policies at Our Expense

Last year the Department of City Planning, Borough President Gale Brewer and Councilmember Chin sponsored a six-month study to examine our current successful zoning.   There were over thirty meetings that included resident and tenant groups, REBNY, NYU, the SoHo and NoHo BIDs, as well as small business, arts and preservation groups, including six public meetings in which hundreds of SoHo/NoHo residents were asked and gave their opinions whether any changes were needed. The final report, Envision SoHo/NoHo, was published last autumn and offered some sensible recommendations to tweak the zoning.  However, it called for further “community involvement and transparency…to allow time for residents and other stakeholders to contemplate the proposed recommendations before a follow-up at CB2”.  These promises never materialized. Asked by a reporter in January about any rezoning here, the mayor said there was simply not enough time left in his administration to get a complicated and time-consuming rezoning passed.  Shortly after, covid hit and the city shut down.  Not a word was heard about the rezoning — until nine months later when the mayor sprung it on us last week.  – What machinations occurred privately between de Blasio, developers, and the developers’ shill “affordable housing” organizations? – Why was our community board excluded despite assurances of “transparency”? – Why was there no promised follow-up with the community? – Why in the waning months of his failed administration is de Blasio springing this on us now? – Could it be because a major property owner, Edison Parking — which owns two huge parking lots here and would profit tremendously from an upzoning — gave generously to the mayor’s election campaign? – Could it be because the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, the so-called “affordable housing advocates” who are pushing this upzoning, have both Edison Parking and Douglas Durst, the chair of REBNY, on its board of directors, along with other big real-estate developers and investment bankers?   Details are Scarce. The proposed area lies roughly between Astor Place and Canal Street from Sixth Avenue to the Bowery, with likely upzonings — two or more times greater than presently allowed — within three “Housing Opportunity Areas”.  See the full proposal here and the map of the area below.  The mayor’s scheme will also likely make it easy for large retail operations to locate in what he mapped as “Commercial Corridors”, Broadway and Lafayette Street — home to hundreds of residents.   One of his justifications for the proposed upzoning is the inclusion of “affordable housing” in new residential developments.  But as our friends at Village Preservation point out, the city could have affordable housing without an upzoning, keeping new development in scale and character, while producing as much or more affordable housing and fewer luxury condos. However, such an approach would not enrich the real-estate interests who are pushing for this upzoning The mayor’s scheme claims to seek racial and economic “diversity” and requires every project to have 75% luxury market-rate units and 25% “affordable” units. The plan calls for  3,200 new units, 400 of which will be “affordable” but 2,400 of which will be luxury units. This ratio doesn’t bring “diversity”. It brings more gentrification.  We want affordable housing — 100% affordable housing.de Blasio Dog Whistles Further despicable is the mayor’s lame attempt to play the race card.  His administration claims this proposal will “integrate” SoHo/NoHo, which is about 70% white.  What he fails to admit is that the slots for the affordable units are awarded via a lottery. Lotteries are random. Lotteries guarantee no racial outcome. But de Blasio never lets truth get in the way of his agenda.   How Affordable Is de Blasio’s “affordable” Housing?   The mayor’s definition of “affordable” is not how most people imagine the term.   One project in Bushwick requires a minimum income of $65,109 to qualify for a studio and allows a household earning as much as $159,40 to qualify for a two-bedroom.   Another project in Long Island City allows families earning up to $278,300 — over a quarter of a million dollars — to qualify for a 3-bedroom unit with a mere $5,183 rent. The same project requires a minimum household income of $104,538 to qualify for a one-bedroom with a rent of $2,544.  See what these buildings look like below. These parameters are the rule with de Blasio’s failed housing agenda: subsidized high-rise housing for the wealthy and homeless shelters for the poor. The mayor’s proposal will not help those who truly need affordable housing; the needy or those earning minimum wage. It will only benefit the wealthy and the upper-middle class. The SoHo Alliance demands that any new housing here be 100% affordable — for the underprivileged and not the wealthy.  What’s Next?

• October 26: Department of City Planning will hold a virtual public informational seminar that will provide information on the draft proposal as well as details on the environmental and public review processes. 
• December 3: City Planning will hold a virtual public scoping meeting to hear comments from the public on the environmental impacts and to allow the public to contribute to the environmental review process.

Stay tuned for details on how to participate in those meetings remotely.  What Can You Do in the Meantime? Here is Village Preservation’s link to the politicians. You can copy their text but better to use your own words. Demand no upzoning or big-box retail.  Demand housing for the needy and the vulnerable. Click here.   Map of Proposed Area

  de Blasio’s “affordable housing” luxury high-rise project in Long Island City.  

 Media reports on the proposed upzoning:https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/10/07/de-blasio-unveils-planned-to-rezone-soho-to-add-affordable-housing/https://nypost.com/2020/10/07/de-blasio-pushes-soho-development-plan-that-would-create-3200-new-apartments/https://www.pix11.com/news/local-news/mayor-wants-to-rezone-parts-of-manhattan-for-affordable-housinghttps://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-estate/soho-rezoning-has-real-estate-support-community-opposition-persistshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/nyregion/soho-affordable-housing-development.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://thevillagesun.com/blaz-revives-soho-noho-rezoning-hopes-to-pass-it-by-terms-endhttps://gothamist.com/news/nyc-will-rezone-soho-and-noho-affordable-housing

September 26, 2020

Do You Want Skyscrapers in SoHo?This week City Comptroller Scott Stringer weighed into the debate about upzoning Soho and NoHo, unequivocally expressing his support for a zoning change that would allow skyscrapers here, where current rules already allow new structures 300-feet tall and more. PLEASE: Send a Letter to Comptroller Stringer — CLICK HEREForward this email to friends and neighbors. Various groups, in some cases backed by developers with vested interests and development sites here, have been advocating for such an upzoning in recent months. This effort hides behind the fig leaf of promoting affordable housing, yet denies the reality that such upzonings create vastly larger quantities of luxury housing in oversized towers than any modest set-aside for affordable housing.  It also ignores that affordable housing could be created — and would be welcomed — WITHOUT destroying long-standing limits on the size of new development — and without offering huge bonanzas to developers as the price for it. Stringer is running for mayor and seems to forget the tremendous amount of support he received from our community when he ran for borough president in 2005 and comptroller in 2013, performing better in some election districts here than he did in his own home district uptown.  It’s important that you tell Comptroller Stringer that massive giveaways to developers — while destroying the scale and character of low-rise, landmarked neighborhoods — is NOT the way to address affordability issues in New York City. Send a Letter to Comptroller Stringer — CLICK HERE

September 17, 2020

ACTION ALERT: Stop Developers’ Plan for Skyscrapers in SoHo/NoHoWe need your help.  Send a letter to our electeds to stop this scheme.PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. Send a letter to city officials — CLICK HERE Background:Our friends at Village Preservation (formerly the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, GVSHP) have exposed an insidious push by real estate developers to upzone SoHo and NoHo, cynically using proponents of affordable housing as the tool. These developers and their shills have started a campaign to lobby the City to re-examine zoning in NoHo and SoHo as a vehicle for granting a 250% increase in the allowable size of development here.   You recall the meetings in 2019 conducted by a land-use professor from Pratt, sponsored by the Department of City Planning, Borough President Brewer and City Councilmember Chin, seeking our opinions whether to tweak our current successful zoning to fit contemporary realities. In case you missed it, the final report was published in November 2019. Read it here.   However, the report was just that, an academic report.  It had no legal or administrative mandate to do anything.  But that doesn’t stop avaricious developers. In recent days, the NY Post has editorialized in favor of 80-story residential skyscrapers, with reference to SoHo and NoHo.  The Citizens Housing and Planning Council, CHPC, has also issued an executive summary and op-ed calling for massive upzoning here.

What the non-profit CHPC failed to reveal is that its board consists of developers who own unbuilt lots in SoHo and NoHo.  These developers would profit tremendously from such a zoning change, along with other big real estate interests for whom such a change could also result in dramatic windfalls.  CHPC dishonestly paints opposition to the massive upzoning plan — which would line the pockets of well-connected developers — as being about opposition to affordable housing, rather than opposition to neighborhood-busting development.  Current zoning rules have already allowed buildings between 210 and 311 feet in our community. Upzoning proponents want to increase those allowances two-and-a-half times.  Village Preservation has written an excellent op-ed illustrating our side of the story and the perils of upzoning. Read it here.

  (l. to r.) 10 Sullivan St. (204 ft. tall), The James Hotel (258 ft. tall), Mondrian SoHo (311 ft. tall) Upzoning advocates want to allow buildings in SoHo and NoHo 250% larger than these.  It’s critical that we tell Mayor de Blasio, Borough President Brewer, Councilmember Chin and other city officials that, while affordable housing is welcome in our community, upzoning schemes that produce massive development largely of super-luxury housing — which these plans call for — are not. Send a letter to city officials — CLICK HERE