South Inwood Residents Call For Contextual Rezoning Expansion

INWOOD, NY — Some Inwood residents fear the city's Inwood NYC rezoning plan could reduce them to "second-class Inwoodites." These neighborhood residents have started a petition asking the city Economic Development Corporation to expand its rezoning area a second time.

Without contextual rezoning expansion to the area bound by Dyckman Street to the north and West 193rd Street to the south, residents would be at the mercy of developers seeking to cash in on the neighborhood's rezoning, according to a petition started on Change.org. The petition was created by the Fort Tryon East Neighborhood Association, which describes itself as an "organization representing the interests of the residents in the portion of Inwood south of Dyckman Street."

As proposed by the city at a Community Board 12 meeting last week, the Inwood NYC rezoning plan currently spans all of Inwood north of Dyckman Street — excluding select parts of the neighborhood such as the Dyckman Houses, an MTA rail yard and Columbia University's athletic complex.

At that meeting, David Friend of the Fort Tryon East Neighborhood Association, called the EDC's decision to draw the rezoning's southern border on Dyckman street "completely arbitrary."

"Inwood does not end at Dyckman street geographically or historically," Friend said. "You're leaving out a chunk of the neighborhood that has been the focus of some of the highest levels of pressure from developers including the Sherman Plaza project last year."

The petition created by the Fort Tryon East Neighborhood Association calls for the EDC to afford it the same contextual rezoning as the area labeled the "Upland Core" section of the neighborhood — housing-rich sections of Inwood west of 10th Avenue.

All areas which fall under the "Upland Core" will be rezoned from R7-2 districts to R7A, a decision which could please some of the more vocal critics of the rezoning plan. The R7A district — an overwhelming favorite among activists during a July zoning workshop — will cap building heights at 8 stories with a buildable floor area ratio of 4.0 for residential buildings and 6.5 for community facilities, according to the EDC. The zoning would also overlay commercial use for ground-floor retail where it currently exists.

The city has shown resistance to including areas south of Dyckman Street in Inwood's rezoning. During a June roundtable EDC staffers told reporters that extending the Inwood NYC rezoning area south could postpone the project for as long as two years. The EDC already pushed back the project by a year to expand rezoning west of 10th Avenue, which was part of the city's initial "study area." The area south of Dyckman Street was never included in the "study area," so the process could take even longer, city staffers said in June.

Check out the Fort Tryon East Neighborhood Association's petition here.

Photo courtesy NYC Economic Development Corporation.