East New York Rezoning Vote Approaches

As early as next week, the City Council Land Use Committee is expected to vote on the rezoning plan for East New York/Cypress Hills, bringing the first of the 15 neighborhood plans proposed by the City closer to becoming a reality. The final outcome of this first neighborhood rezoning under the de Blasio administration will have major implications for the East New York/Cypress Hills community and for the City as a whole.

Throughout the land use process, the Coalition for Community Advancement: Progress for East New York/Cypress Hills - a broad based local coalition that has worked for the past 18 months to bring a local voice about neighborhood needs to the planning process --has promoted concrete ways to include the priorities of tenants, homeowners, small business owners, and workers in the City's planning process. The Coalition developed its own detailed Alternative Plan, highlighting how zoning could address community needs. Among the many recommendations raised in the Coalition's Alternative Plan, the Coalition asked that any new housing constructed through rezoning should be deeply affordable to meet the needs of community residents, that strong anti-harassment and anti-displacement policies be implemented to protect low income renters and homeowners, and that special emphasis be placed on protecting owners and tenants who reside in small unregulated buildings. Following the passage of Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), which the Coalition has stated lacks the options they need to build sufficiently affordable housing in their neighborhood, community members have called for the rezoning in East New York to be scaled back, prioritizing building for the right mix of income levels over additional units. Throughout the rezoning process in East New York, the City has maintained that subsidy will be used in conjunction with MIH to get the maximum amount of affordability within each development.

ANHD appreciates the City's subsidy commitment, which shows a meaningful response to some of the communities' concerns. But, future mayoral administrations may not be willing to make the same commitment. And, as the East New York housing market changes in the years to come, the deep-affordability option may no longer be productive. For this reason, the Coalition believes that a smaller, more targeted rezoning would allow resources to be concentrated on subsidizing to deeper affordability levels, and would help guard against the possibility of an unexpectedly large amount of market-rate or luxury housing development. Arlington Village, in particular, has been identified by the Coalition as a site that should be removed from the rezoning because it is to valuable a resource to lose.

Built in the 1940's for veterans returning from WWII, Arlington Village is made up of 210 units, and needs to be maintained as a critical supply of affordable housing. The site also has the potential to house desperately-needed community facilities, such as schools, community centers, gardens and fresh food supermarkets. Including Arlington Village in the neighborhood-wide rezoning offers the owner the ability to make a windfall profit in exchange for market rate housing, deprives the local community and council member of the opportunity to engage in a thorough planning process specific to one of the largest sites in the neighborhood, and forgoes an opportunity to develop deeply affordable units. The vast majority of housing in the ENY study area consists of small unregulated 1-4 unit, owner-occupied buildings. Currently, the solutions that have been proposed are not enough to meet the need, which is critical since many small homes house both low-income owners and renters. The City must use every tool that it currently has at its disposal and explore every legislative and policy option for creating others, so that it can assist small building owners and protect a critical supply of affordable housing. More than half of tenants within the East New York study area live in unregulated housing.

While the city's efforts toward providing legal services for tenants is certainly commendable, tenants in unregulated housing will not benefit nearly as much from that commitment. The Coalition has proposed a $15 million Small Homes Preservation Fund to grant capital repairs to homeowners in exchange for maintaining affordable rents to low-income tenants. Maintaining manufacturing sites rather than rezoning them to a mixed-use designation that has proved time and time again to result in residential development rather than industrial uses, would likewise help to fulfill a clear community need for good local jobs.

This would ensure that existing manufacturing jobs will remain in the community, as well as concentrating and maximizing subsidy dollars used on city owned, and other sites where residential housing will be built. Beyond changes to the proposed rezoning to ensure that newly developed housing meets the community's need, stronger policies to protect the neighborhood's existing affordable housing stock are critical. Piloting an Accessory Dwelling Unit designation to legalize basement apartments, creating tax credits for homeowners, a reduction of water and sewer rates, and an expansion of small homeowner counseling programs are a sampling of the many policy ideas the city can implement to assist homeowners and landlords in smaller unregulated buildings. The East New York rezoning is the first true test of the de Blasio Administration's commitment to a different kind of community planning - to a perspective that goes beyond zoning to planning, and a process that truly engages local community members. The priorities and creative planning proposals that have emerged throughout that process should be reflected in the final East New York plan passed by City Council and the City Planning Commission.