This handy explainer of the proposals circulating in East Harlem, the process that the city’s plan will now go through and the opinions that some neighborhood residents have is available…
Supporters of the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan say their rezoning proposal is not just better than the city’s, but also superior to the option of not rezoning at all.
East Harlem Neighborhood Plan participants said it was disappointingly vague, and others said it won’t be enough to counter rezoning displacement pressures.
The media (including City Limits) often depicts the rezoning discussion in East Harlem as a debate between the city and backers of an alternative rezoning plan. Reality is more complicated.
Affordable housing, tenant protections and lesser density increases are among the demands that a community coalition plans to present to city planners.
The plan’s complexity impressed some planning commissioners. But no effort was made to accommodate the community concerns that greeted an earlier draft.
A real-estate brokerage’s reports on East Harlem and Gowanus glosses over opposition to potential rezonings there and predicts that the neighborhoods will soon ‘take off.’
