'We’re not Williamsburg’: Inwood Residents Bash Rezoning Proposal

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS-INWOOD, NY — Inwood residents had a message for the New York City Economic Development Corporation during Tuesday night's Community Board 12 meeting of the whole — Northern Manhattan is not for sale.

Representatives from the city EDC were met with passionate criticism from Inwood residents after giving an updated presentation on a proposed Inwood neighborhood project originally introduced in October 2015.

During the meeting, Adam Meagher, a representative from the EDC, described the project as a "proactive approach to development" that would set a framework for regulating private development in the neighborhood.

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The rezoning plan targets three areas of Inwood — Sherman Creek, Upland Wedge and the tip of Manhattan.

Here's an illustration of the EDC's vision for Inwood:

At the start of his presentation, Meagher had already lost the crowd. When Meagher took the microphone, about half of the people who showed up for the meeting stood up to display signs with messages such as "#SaveUptown" and "Northern Manhattan is not for sale."

Meagher said that the EDC chose to pursue a project in Inwood to alleviate the affordable housing crisis, improve the neighborhood's aging infrastructure and spur community and economic development within the neighborhood. Meagher said the project would also benefit the neighborhood by offering safer streets for pedestrians and greater access to waterfront areas.

But residents were not swayed.

The opposition shifted from silent protest to open shouting when EDC representative Jocelyn Dupre started to talk about some of the project's specific proposals. When Dupre stated that new Inwood developments would require 25 or 30 percent of units to be affordable housing, one meeting attendee shouted out.

"For who?"

After the first person spoke out, the rest of the room began to shout out their objections to the rezoning plan.

"That is not affordable housing, that is a lie!" called out one objector.

Eventually the presentation came to an end, and it was time for public comment. For more than an hour, residents got up in front of the meeting, and one by one they offered spirited rejections of the rezoning proposal.

David Friend, an Inwood resident for nearly 10 years, warned that the rezoning project could turn Inwood into the next Williamsburg — a hyper-gentrified neighborhood with skyrocketing rents.

“If you look at the top-five hyper-gentrified neighborhoods in New York City, what do they all have in common?” Friend said. “Massive influx of market-rate housing. There is a clear correlation between large increases in market-rate housing and the complete destruction of working-class neighborhoods. We all know affordable housing in Inwood means rent-stabilized housing.”

Other community members echoed Friend’s concerns and brought up new ones, such as the harmful affect of development on the natural habitat of Inwood and the dangers of developing luxury apartment buildings on Inwood’s aging infrastructure systems.

Josmar Rojas, a 24-year resident of Inwood, invited EDC officials to “take a walk with me through my Inwood.”

“You can come and see which is the income in that area,” Rojas said. “This affordable housing that you are talking about is not for us.”

The public comment section of the meeting came to a rowdy end as Inwood resident Ana Rosario posed a question to EDC representatives.

“I want to ask you personally, what is it going to take for the EDC to not do this plan?” Rosario said. “If the community is speaking up and saying they don’t want it, what is it going to take so that you don’t propose this?”

As soon as the question was proposed, people in the room started shouting “answer” and “no rezoning.”

But they didn’t get an answer.

Eventually the crowd settled down as members of Community Board 12 began to address them. Most board members said that after seeing the passion of the community they would research rezoning and look into reversing a prior board decision to allow rezoning in the Sherman Creek area of Inwood.

After the meeting, Rojas, who invited EDC members to walk Inwood with him, said that he felt hopeful.

“People are really into the cause, we just have to stay focused,” Rojas said. “Most of us are poor or middle class, so we can’t make it to meetings. It means we may have to sacrifice time at work.”

Residents will have the opportunity to attend an open house for the rezoning project Thursday, July 28 at the Manhattan Bible Church.