Re-Zonings Need Community Input

    Communities from Across the City Come Together to Call on Administration to Better Partner with Neighborhoods on Re-Zonings - Call for Community Planning to Meet Local Needs   As the de Blasio Administration moves forward with its plans to rezone neighborhoods across the city, hundreds of community residents, business owners, workers, and advocates from impacted neighborhoods gathered on the steps of City Hall today calling for the administration to better partner with local communities. Concerned that previous re-zonings have led to the displacement of local residents and loss of affordable housing, residents want to ensure that the Administration works closely and effectively with local communities to implement proactive anti-displacement measures, build the affordable housing neighborhoods really need, create and preserve family-supporting jobs, and invest in local infrastructure. The rally was co-organized by the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), member organizing of 98 neighborhood-based affordable housing groups, and the Real Affordability for All coalition (RAFA), along with community organizations, unions, and allies. Communities from all 5 boroughs were represented, coming together under the slogan of Communities First! Asserting that their communities are the roots that make New York City strong, participants pasted neighborhood names to a large cardboard tree. Speakers from neighborhoods as far flung as East New York, Brooklyn, Flushing, Queens, and the Jerome Avenue area in the Bronx, raised similar concerns about what rezoning would mean for those who currently live and work in their communities. Many of the speakers expressed serious concerns with the community engagement process the Department of Community Planning (DCP) has conducted thus far, and called for a better community planning process. Particularly in East New York, which is the first neighborhood slated by the city to enter the ULURP process, speakers expressed concern with the pace at which the city is moving forward despite a lack of clarity around the details of its Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning program or other similarly relevant policies. Darma V. Diaz, of the Coalition for Community Advancement: Progress for East New York/Cypress Hills said: "We are here to demand that the City slow down the rezoning plan for East New York/Cypress Hills and other 14 communities. The City needs time to make a real plan for affordable housing that doesn't push out low-income residents from our neighborhoods." The community organizations called on the Mayor to live up to the vision of a more equitable city that he has put forth, most recently in the State of the City address. "We appreciate that the Mayor recognized the connection between zoning and harassment and displacement. We appreciate the increased resources that will help us fight these battles in court.  But we can't wait for the fight to get to court.  We know many tenants never make it to court in the first place!!!" said CASA Leader Tamara Quinones. "We need strong anti-harassment and anti-displacement policies that will take a comprehensive, neighborhood-based approach to protect those of us who live and worked in the areas slated for re-zonings.  In neighborhoods like the South Bronx, re-zonings have the potential of causing a net loss of affordable housing if we don't do this right.  We can't build housing without having a plan to protect and improve the affordable housing that already exists." The organizations unveiled a new Community Platform for Equitable Neighborhood Planning which lays out a list of principles and policy commitments the organizations and the communities they represent want to see addressed before the Administration's neighborhood re-zonings move forward. In addition to points around affordable housing, the platform calls for a more holistic approach to community planning, with points on anti-displacement mechanisms, preserving existing local jobs, ensuring that local construction jobs prioritize local hiring and where possible union labor, and addressing local infrastructure needs. "People are genuinely excited about the Mayor's vision for equity and affordable housing", said Benjamin Dulchin, Executive Director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, "but they also know from hard experience with the past administration that community re-zonings involve a lot of trade offs, and that their neighborhoods will only be strengthened if the right balance of new market rate housing, new affordable housing, anti-displacement strategies, and preservation of manufacturing space and jobs is taken into account. Communities want this balance to begin in real consultation with a local vision." "With the crisis of affordability in New York City threatening the dignity of our families, faith communities across New York are excited by the mayor's goal of using the tool of rezoning to create more affordable housing in our city. However, today we are standing with RAFA and ANHD to make sure that the creation of that housing is tempered with anti-harassment & anti-displacement language for existing residents, provides real and deep affordability at the neighborhood level, creates opportunities for family sustaining careers for local residents, and includes communities in creating and executing this goal so that the plan truly really deliver on its promise for all New Yorkers," said Onleilove Alston, Executive Director of Faith in New York. Blogger: Emily Goldstein Blog team: Benjamin Dulchin, Jonathan Furlong, Moses Gates, Emily Goldstein, Ericka Stallings, Jaime Weisberg, Barika X. Williams. Editor, Anne Troy