A city grant to the Washington Heights Business Improvement District and a group of Inwood arts organizations is part of the city’s Inwood Action Plan aimed at shoring up local firms. But some see BIDs as agents of gentrification.
Suraj Patel has mounted an energetic and well-funded campaign to wrest the Democratic line away from Carolyn Maloney, who has represented the Silk Stocking district in Congress since 1993.
Income is up and poverty is down in Central Harlem, West Harlem and Washington Heights. But those neighborhood-wide numbers don’t capture what different segments of each community are experiencing.
Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez’s community meeting on Sunday came midway through the public review procedure through which the Inwood rezoning will be approved or disproved.
Her decision is non-binding, but sends a message to the de Blasio administration that EDC’s plans for Inwood requires substantial changes.
District 74 covers most of the Lower East Side, the East Village, Gramercy Park, Murray Hill and some of Midtown East. The preceding assemblyman, Brian Kavanagh, left office to take a seat in the State Senate.
Most speakers called on the Borough President to vote no to the proposed Inwood rezoning, saying it would exacerbate displacement and tax local infrastructure.
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer held a hearing April 10 on the de Blasio administration’s proposed rezoning in Inwood, a key step in the land-use approval process. Watch the video!
The board’s vote is not binding, but it sends a signal to higher powers that the rezoning proposal will need to change before it has local support.
Some advocates are now focused on the plan’s implementation, some on making it better and others on suing the city.