Borough President To Oppose East Harlem Rezoning Plan

EAST HARLEM, NY — Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer will oppose the city's plan to rezone East Harlem, she announced Thursday morning. The decision marks the second rejection of the plan during the public review process — Community Board 11 also voted the plan down — as the city's proposal has failed to earn an endorsement prior to coming before the City Planning Commission.

Brewer cited the plan's deviations from Community Board zoning recommendations and the community-formed East Harlem Neighborhood Plan in her decision to oppose the plan.

"A rezoning done the right way offers the opportunity to create many new affordable units, including units affordable to low-income East Harlem residents, while actually reducing the effects of gentrification and reinvigorating neighborhood small businesses and retail," Brewer said in a statement.

"What the administration has put in front of us, however, is rezoning done the wrong way."

The next step in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure will be votes from the City Planning Commission and City Council. The votes done by Community Board 11 and the borough president are considered advisory votes.

The East Harlem rezoning plan, first presented in October 2016, proposes zoning changes in two parts of East Harlem. The first part spans from East 104th Street to East 126th Street between Park and Second avenues, and the second part spans from East 126th Street to East 132nd Streets between Fifth and Second avenues.

The plan would rezone some areas of the neighborhood for high-density capacities, which could mean towers as tall as 35 stories. According to a draft scope of work, the city projects the plan could add more than 4,000 residential units to East Harlem.

But Brewer doubted that new housing units created by the plan would be affordable for Harlem residents. The borough president also worried that some proposed upzonings would result in too much density, which could worsen the effects of gentrification in East Harlem, she announced Thursday.

"For these reasons, I must say no to this proposal," Brewer said in a statement.

"East Harlem needs a plan that better preserves neighborhood context, makes real up-front commitments to affordable housing preservation, spreads new development across a wider area, and addresses the many other needs that were identified by this community in the process that produced the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan."

Check out Brewer's full ULURP recommendation below:

Photo courtesy of NYC Department of City Planning