Inwood Rezoning Public Scoping Meeting Scheduled

INWOOD, NY — Inwood residents will soon get an opportunity to suggest changes to a city-backed plan to rezone the vast majority of the neighborhood. The city Economic Development Corporation announced that it will hold a public scoping meeting to discuss the rezoning project in September.

The scoping meeting will be held Thursday, Sept. 14, at Inwood Junior High School on Academy Street, city officials said. During the meeting a draft scope of work,released earlier this month, will be discussed and residents will be able to submit feedback on the plan.

City officials unveiled an updated proposal to rezone a large swatch of Inwood north of Dyckman Street. City representatives first presented its plans to Community Board 12 in the summer of 2015, but were booed out of the meeting by activists.

In July, EDC representative Adam Meagher was able to deliver his entire presentation without getting shouted down or booed out of the room, but many anti-rezoning activists were not entirely sold on the contextual rezoning proposal.

Activists raised concerns over whether Inwood's aging infrastructure could support the developments that zoning would bring, the neighborhood's already over-taxed public transit and school systems and the upzoning and development of areas near the Harlem River waterfront that may be liable to flooding.

Photos courtesy NYC Economic Development Corporation