The Rezonings Reshaping NYC

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Gowanus, SoHo, the Upper East Side. Gowanus, SoHo, the Upper East Side. What are these new york city neighborhoods have in common? Well, they're all on the verge of being transformed by the process of rezoning, which would allow developers to build giant projects previously prohibited in the area. In the case of SoHo and Gowanus, those projects would be massive residential complexes. They'd be required to reserve a portion of units as permanent, affordable housing, securing a bold addition to the de Blasio legacy he hopes, just as he leaves office and further testing the efficacy of mandatory inclusionary housing as a way to address income inequality for generations to come.

Something it works, something it just adds so much market-rate housing, that the inclusionary portions, the affordable portions get overwhelmed and the net effect is negative.

In the case of the Upper East Side, the zoning would allow a new science and blood center, some of you have heard about this, which before the City Council voted on it last week was against the wishes of the sitting council member, Ben Kallos, who also has his own legacy at stake as he leaves office at the end of this year as well, term-limited out. There may have even been a compromise reached there, which we'll get into. All three projects will see a final vote within the next month.

In the case of Gowanus and the Blood Center, there could be a final tally by Thanksgiving Day. This raises the larger question of rezonings in the city. It was one of the biggest legacies of Mayor Bloomberg. It was one of the biggest legacies in a different way he hopes of Mayor de Blasio, but when are they good for a neighborhood? When are they bad? When are they good for people who don't necessarily live in the neighborhood, but are good city-wide? Here with me to go over these projects and more and take your calls is Katie Honan, reporter at the nonprofit news organization, The City. Hi, Katie. Thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Katie Honan: Thank you so much for having me on, Brian.

Brian: Are all these projects on their way to getting approved? What could still change?

Katie: In the case of SoHo/Noho, there's still some work getting negotiated. I know that speaker Corey Johnson, so the council members were negotiating I guess guarantee of more affordable housing. In the Blood Center rezoning every side, that also is going back to the drawing board, they've reduced the height of the building to some degree, although councilmember Ben Kallos still says there's a chance that this could not end up passing in the full Council. This was the first time that this idea of member deference, he was against the project, but most of the people in the subcommittee voted for it, and a pass out of that, which is very rare.

Usually, council members defer to the sitting council member. You trust that that person understands their community the best because it's what they represent, but the explanation was given that this is a project that will benefit the city as a whole, there will be vital research getting done that could improve the lives of the entire city so that's why that they approved that project.

Brian: The larger picture here, I think the larger issue in terms of rezonings in general, in recent years, Mayor de Blasio has set various goals. In 2017, he promised he would create 120,000 new affordable units. Where on that scale are we today? What about this whole controversial project, which has been controversial in my neighborhood, in Upper Manhattan? Controversial in so many places in the city of allowing more density, higher construction of bigger residential apartment buildings with a lot of market-rate units, but in support of having a certain percentage set aside so that they're, in total, more affordable units in the city than they were before.

Katie: Yes. The controversy I know you're referring to the in-mode rezoning. With all that rezonings, there's significant opposition to it for I guess, obvious reasons. It will completely transform a community. I do think that there isn't really that much data that shows the long-term effect of a rezoning. We just haven't-- We can't see into the future yet, unfortunately. In the case of especially Gowanus, it's facilitating the creation of more affordable units, but it's also creating lots more market-rate housing. The fear of displacement is usually the biggest fear and the people who are opposed to these plans--

It sounds almost like a cliche term, but people say that this is just a giveaway to real estate developers, and there is I guess, that concern of just creating more and more market-rate housing and changing and transforming these communities could result in displacement of the people that are there. That is the larger issue. The mayor had actually even increased his goal of creating or preserving affordable housing units. They upped it to 300,000 in 2017. I think the latest as of July 2020, I have a figure that its construction of around 50,000 new affordable homes and preserving more than double that.

Reaching that goal of affordable housing, affordable housing being one of the largest issues in the city, critics of these rezonings think that there are better ways to actually create affordable housing across the city as opposed to these large-scale rezonings.

Brian: What would they be because I think the argument that the mayor makes, and I feel like I've had this conversation with him a whole bunch of times. The argument that he makes is, it would be wonderful if we didn't have to create a lot more market-rate housing in order to get some more affordable housing, but the economics for that don't exist. The private developers won't build just affordable housing. The city doesn't have enough money to build it at that scale, hundreds of thousands of units without involving the private sector.

Katie: Yes. When we look through the history of New York City, when we actually created truly affordable housing, I think of a program like the Mitchell-Lama program, growing up in the city, that was between NYCHA and Mitchell-Lama that was two of the only affordable housing options that people seem to have. The financing isn't there. You need to have some market-rate housing, that is what the city says, in order to facilitate and create these. The affordability levels vary. You have the steeply affordable, depending on the AMI, depending on how much money a family makes, but there's been plenty of reporting that show that there are even issues with the lottery process, who gets in, how people apply, and how complicated it can be to actually get into this housing.

Brian: Yes. In the case of SoHo, it's really SoHo and NoHo, it's different because these are more upscale neighborhoods than most of the ones where we see the rezonings for more development with some affordable housing. We're getting into a race and class issue here of an area that's pretty upscale being told, "Now you're going to have poor people living in your midst."

Katie: Yes. That's certainly the case in SoHo/NoHo. When I listened to the, I think it was about a seven-hour-long hearing last week on the Soho/Noho subcommittee on zoning and franchises, and it was those who are in favor of it, their criticism of those against it is you just don't want poor people in your neighborhood. I think the last time SoHo and NoHo was rezoned was in the 70s. It is a predominantly wealthy and white neighborhood, much more so than Gowanus, I know they get lumped together but SoHo and NoHo in particular. There really hasn't been a rezoning to facilitate the creation of housing because as you know, you and your listeners are aware when this housing was, especially the artist's [unintelligible 00:08:23], these were manufacturing hubs that then became illegal housing that then were grandfathered in as legal homes, but there's even restrictions for that.

Those in favor of it usually say, "Look, we're trying to actually build more housing." You get NIMBY, "not in my backyard" thrown around for those who are opposed to it. The opponents of the SoHo/NoHo rezoning, they say, this actually won't create that much affordable housing. It will facilitate more big box stores and turn SoHo into more and just create a lot more density in a neighborhood that they feel doesn't need it.

Brian: Listeners, anybody who wants to call in on any of these rezonings or the big question of rezoning as part of Mayor de Blasio's legacy, for better or worse or next. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692, affordable housing, such a central issue always in New York City. How did de Blasio do, especially with that part of approach that relied on rezonings? Of course, we'll take this up with Eric Adams over time too, the de Blasio approach was somewhat different from the Bloomberg approach with some overlap. We'll see how different the Eric Adams approach is. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692 to for one of the great reporters in New York City in our day, Katie Honan, from The City. Let's take a phone call right now from Marsha in Brooklyn.

You're on WNYC. Hello, Marsha.

[beeping sound] Or maybe not. Let's try Tom in Astoria. Tom, do we have you?

Tom: Yes. A simple question. Hi, thanks for taking my call. In this equation of all these numbers, affordable housing, market rate, in the discussion, I don't hear the aesthetics of the neighborhood. One of the joys of living here for me is walking across the East Side to the Met and the character of the neighborhood, does that ever fit into the discussion?

Brian: Absolutely. I think this is one of the reasons why when we're talking about density, it sometimes becomes a question of aesthetics in the eye of the people who already live there versus a larger social good on the part of urban planners. Katie, I wonder how you see that?

Katie: The aesthetics is actually one of the largest points of criticism for those in the neighborhood in the Upper East Side who are opposed to the Blood Center rezoning, because you're going to create this- Originally, I think it was more than 300 feet high, that was the original proposal. It would completely dwarf every other building around it and cast shadows on a nearby park and a nearby school. Those who are thinking of the greater good, I guess, of this creation of this building, it's like, "Oh it's just shadows," but shadows do affect some quality of life.

That's not to say that that's more important than facilitating the creation of jobs or important scientific research, but that is one of the big criticisms. You see it with Gowanus rezoning as well, people are concerned about huge luxury high rises getting built. The same in SoHo and NoHo. People are afraid. You're used to a community looking a certain way and then things change rapidly, and you wonder. Presidents who I've spoken to, what's the greater good here? If you're creating housing, but if it's a small number of affordable units, is that the tradeoff for having this humongous building that hadn't been there before?

Brian: Michelle in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michelle.

Michelle: Hi. One of the questions that I have is what happens to people who are put into neighborhoods that they really can't afford? It's nice that they have affordable housing in an expensive neighborhood, but the problem is that they don't have any place to shop, the stores tend to be really expensive. They really don't feel comfortable and they can't buy stuff there. Then they can't shop locally. What happens there? That's not an organic neighborhood, and it really doesn't work, I don't think.

Brian: That sounds like an argument against allowing poor people or creating the structures under which poorer people would move into wealthier neighborhoods. Katie, you could comment on that. There's another dynamic too about affordability in neighborhoods that are currently lower-income more or less and have affordable places to shop, that if you bring in these towers that have a lot of market-rate housing, which is going to retract a higher-income demographic than lives in the neighborhood already, even as they also create more affordable apartments in total for that neighborhood, that overall the more expensive stores are going to start to come in when they weren't there before, and the area's going to become less affordable to shop in for the people who already live there.

Katie: Yes, it sounds like a riddle. What came first, the tenants or the commercial strips? What the rezonings can facilitate on the city's end is allowing mixed-use where they can create however many square feet of commercial storefront. They can't necessarily say, "No, Whole Foods, you cannot come in here because we don't want you to come in here," or something like that. I think even looking at people's shopping patterns, I read about that 15-minute grocery store, I think wealthier people, maybe they tend to even use different methods of shopping. They're not going to the local Key Foods or whatever they're going to because they just wouldn't shop there anyway.

That is, I guess, a larger, holistic view of a neighborhood and what makes a neighborhood desirable, what makes people want to live there. I think maybe when you get people in different socioeconomic categories, they want different things, and that also creates that tension, but these rezonings, they're not going to-- Communities can probably stop, there was a big fight to save a supermarket in central Brooklyn a few months ago, and that was because people were afraid they wouldn't have an affordable place to shop, but the city can't necessarily force a shop to not come to a place or to stay.

Brian: How did the Gowanus rezoning turn out? This has been in the works for six years, and this is a neighborhood that I guess I would characterize as more modest income, but starting to gentrify. What does the final version look like?

Katie: The biggest win for those in favor of the rezoning, and this was facilitated by Councilman Brad Lander, our upcoming controller, as well as Councilman Steve Levin, it was securing millions and millions of dollars for repairs for two public housing developments in the area. That was the big win. That was the outstanding thing that they were waiting on before they agreed to this deal. That is a big deal, obviously, for the people there. You could argue, "Why isn't the city paying to fix these apartments anyway?" The money gets invested in the community almost as a bargaining chip, I guess, for there to be that agreement.

There's a big project called Gowanus Green that will actually be 100% affordable, 950 units with different AMI for income on who can live there, community space. There's actually a proposal to the-- The Gowanus Canal is a Superfund site, and that cleanup is beginning, but there's restrictions when they're constructing for the Gowanus rezoning that would not further pollute the heavily polluted Gowanus Canal. There's also the landmark units, buildings that are there, they created artist space and guaranteed studio space for different artists. What is called aggressive sustainability requirements and infrastructure changes, I know we've all seen the videos of Fourth Avenue flooding whenever it's rainy. There are some improvements there that could stop that flooding.

Brian: I know you mentioned the Superfund site there. People in the neighborhood aren't just concerned about the pollution of the canal because the water would be dirty, but that it would dredge up toxins that would cause negative health effects. That's certainly a complexity in Gowanus. Elie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Elie.

Elie: I have no pity that the city is not going to be able to push things through because I've seen on my own [unintelligible 00:17:19] community stands up as in a very rare occasion altogether to oppose facility for another EDP site [unintelligible 00:17:31] for people's emotional issues because they kept on dumping them in the neighborhood and that caused serious harms to the neighborhood, they increased crime. They don't give the resource to the police department. There's another factor we haven't discussed. When they're doing development, they give it to commercial developers.

They're not building for families, they're building small apartments. There's no multi-unit apartments. You're going to community with families, [unintelligible 00:17:56] they're getting pushed out, they don't have an option to go rent an apartment, their children get married and have children. You're pushing people out because the fact is it's only about money, it's not about a community.

Brian: Elie, thank you very much. I know, Katie, that Elie also told our screener that one of his concerns was that only wealthier neighborhoods have the capacity to fight these controversial rezonings, and I've got some of the stats here, the area encompassing SoHo has a median household income of 150,000. The median income in the Gowanus rezoning area is 106,000, still six figures. In East New York, obviously, another Brooklyn neighborhood that was recently rezoned, the median income was only $42,000 a year. The politics may have been different, but there was not as much resistance or not as much successful resistance.

Katie: I would say most of these rezonings have had some resistance, but of course, in a neighborhood like SoHo and NoHo, they've been able to retain lawyers. It can be very, very expensive to push this. That is true that there is that level of where the resistance is, it's in a wealthier community, but we saw it also in Inwood, which is not as wealthy as SoHo and NoHo. There was a deep push to stop this rezoning. The same thing in East New York. The industry city rezoning was actually, it didn't happen because of community opposition, and it also did not have the support of the council member.

From what I've seen, most of the rezonings have had some opposition. I think the only one that didn't really have serious opposition was downtown Far Rockaway in Queens. It was rezoning a long-abandoned shopping center, among other parts of downtown Far Rockaway. Again, money, it's much easier to be wealthy. That's a dumb thing to say, but when you have the means, you have the time and the resources to fight it. There usually is a bigger fight, but as we've seen with different neighborhoods, it hasn't always been successful.

Brian: Katie, looks like we have some breaking news since the show went on the air, which is that the de Blasio administration has announced that they're opening COVID booster shots to all adults. See it yet?

Yes, but I think I saw someone on Twitter say they tried to make an appointment and they weren't eligible so I don't know how. I would have to get a booster myself but I think the cases are rising. The Mayor was attributing this to the cold weather, more people inside, so his health commissioner and the hospital's commissioner I know were encouraging everyone to go get a booster, hopefully that trickles down to the providers to be aware that you don't need the specific qualifications in order to get it.

Brian: If they just announced that this morning, I know it will take, just based on the history of when other boosters and previous first-round vaccines were rolled out, it will take the pharmacies for example, a little while, maybe a day to get it up on their sites so that people will be seen as qualifying when they check the right boxes, when they try to register online. I guess in private doctor's offices it can be a little more informal than that but this is brand new and they must have had a lot of meetings over the weekend because I just asked the Mayor on Friday on our weekly Ask the Mayor air segment if he thought that New York should do this?

I had mentioned that governor Polis in Colorado had apparently become the first out of concern of for a new wave that's taking place out there and generally the colder weather coming in and the susceptibility of viral spread during older weather, more people doing it, things indoors, et cetera, asked the Mayor whether he thought governor Hochul should do the same thing for New York and he was very non-committal, like he basically said without saying it, "Well, that's a new idea, we're only starting to look at it", so they must have looked at it pretty fast over the weekend.

Katie: They might have seen the numbers going up and spoken to their health advisors who pointed out that with the numbers rising, it's more important than ever to get more people boosted who are eligible for it.

Brian: What else do you think Mayor de Blasio has to do in these last few weeks? What job is still in front of him that might act matter to city policy?

Katie: I know I'm on him for that much longer so no, I think he's leaving a lot to the next administration. There was a story this weekend about zone high schools and what the plan would be and if they're going to do specific location-based wherever your high school is, there was debate about whether that's actually happening or not. Again, the creation and the siltation of building more affordable housing however it is, whether it's in a rezoning which obviously has lots of critics and there's a lot that is still misunderstood and unsure and unclear about what actually impact it has on a community.

The legacy of COVID too, I think because of the scandal of governor [inaudible 00:23:07] and him resigning and especially seeing the latest transcripts about how he behaved at the peak of COVID with local municipalities and health departments. I still think there's a lot to look at with Mayor de Blasio and how he handled COVID especially at the peak of it, policing is still an issue and of course, there's just the general quality of life concerns of people here in the city, crime and how we ensure that it does not continue to go up and transportation issues that are still pending to the next administration so there is a lot.

You know what, with governor, sorry-- With Mayor-elect Adams, we haven't heard that many future plans for him, since he's won both the primary and the general we've heard him speak a lot but not about really specific plans so I'm looking forward to hearing from him what he will pick up from Mayor de Blasio and make his priority.

Brian: Although there have been least a few particular areas of policy where Adams seems to be saying he will reverse things that de Blasio has done like canceling the Gifted and Talented programs in the elementary schools and also restoring a plainclothes police unit to go after guns on the street. A similar unit for which de Blasio and commissioner [unintelligible 00:24:25] had recently disbanded.

Katie: That has been a big issue over the last week, what mayor Adams has said is that the element of surprise is important for policing, so you need that plains clothes unit and obviously people point out that it's one of the most dangerous units in terms of policing and police brutality and violence. He has the experience as a police officer and he said that he found that is one of the best tools when it is used correctly.

Brian: When it is used correctly and of course there have been some horrific police fatal shootings, fatal shootings by police in the course of those kinds of unit's work and we'll see if he can reconstitute this kind of plainclothes street crimes or anti-gun unit and not have it do that, I guess time will tell. Funny enough, one that it hasn't gotten as much attention that put de Blasio and Eric Adams on different sides of a gun prevention. Question is de Blasio just ordered the placement of, I guess temporary metal detectors in a number of New York City public high schools where they hadn't been before. Adams came out against that. You would think maybe the tough-on-crime incoming Mayor trying to maintain that reputation as he starts would before that but he said no, metal detectors make kids who were going to high school feel like they're being criminalized.

Katie: I know, Mayor de Blasio did that directly in response to what had been some pretty high-profile assaults and incidents of violence within city high schools. Yes. I will say Adams and de Blasio differ also on he believes that the school safety agent should be kept under the NYPD's control which de Blasio has moved them or planned to move them out of that. I guess it's different approaches to policing within the city schools and what they think might keep students and staff and faculty safe.

Brian: We will leave it there with Katie Honan, reporter for the non-profit news organization The City. Katie, thanks. Again, her latest article is on the rezoning's that the de Blasio administration and this city council before most of them are term-limited out, are trying to finish up before the end of the year, on the Upper East Side, Gowanus and Soho, NoHo. Katie, thanks so much.

Katie: Thanks, Brian. Have a great day.

 

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