Industrial Jobs Coalition Issues Statement on the City Planning Commission’s Zoning for Economic Opportunity Text Amendment Vote

The Industrial Jobs Coalition – a city-wide coalition of industrial policy advocates, service providers, and non-profit developers of industrial space that advocates to ensure New York City’s industrial sector continues to provide our neighborhoods with good paying, working and middle class, industrial jobs – takes note of the vote today by the City Planning Commission to advance the Zoning For Economic Text Amendment. We continue to believe this proposal includes long overdue reforms to the city’s manufacturing zones.

In our conversations with our respective Community Boards, the Commissioners, Borough Presidents, and Council Members, along with delivered testimony before the Commission, we stressed the potential of this Text Amendment to advance many of the City’s economic goals while encouraging the Commission to modify the amendment. Specifically, we encouraged modifications to the New Manufacturing Districts Application (Proposal 18) along these two broad lines: 

• Prioritize the preservation and growth of industrial businesses by 

  • Increasing density for industrial uses while  

  • Further limiting density for competing non-industrial uses in Core Industrial Districts

• Increase incentives for industrial businesses to be included in mixed-use commercial developments outside of Core Industrial Districts

While the Commission chose not to include these recommendations in its modifications, we remain committed to them as a Coalition. We look forward to advocating for these modifications before the public and working with the City Council to l strengthen this important reform further.

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ABOUT THE INDUSTRIAL JOBS COALITION

The Industrial Jobs Coalition is a citywide alliance of community groups, policy advocates, and service providers fighting to protect and preserve manufacturing as a sector in New York. We advocate for a zoning framework that allows manufacturers to stay in the city and ends speculation on industrial land, to ensure that the jobs being created in manufacturing areas are good jobs accessible to all New Yorkers.