Trump Soho sets a bad precedent

Trump Soho sets a bad precedent

A demonstration outside the construction site of the Trump Soho Hotel Condominium last week saw tensions run high. An ever-cocky Donald Trump was leading a press conference prior to a “launch party” that night for the glitzy mega-project. Across the street, dozens of protesters, led by the Soho Alliance and the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, berated the developer, the condo-hotel and the Bloomberg administration for allowing the project to go forward.

Much is at stake with this embattled building.

A 42-story luxury project, it would be the tallest structure between Midtown and the Financial District. It has the potential to significantly and permanently alter the nature of surrounding communities like Soho and Hudson Square.

Clearly, there’s a tremendous amount of money riding on Trump Soho. The developers are racing to put up the tower, now at 16 stories, before the neighborhood is rezoned—a move that would permit residential use while substantially lowering the allowable height and bulk. By racing to put the tower up now, Trump and partners get the benefit of virtual residential use, plus extra height—this while the Department of Buildings is setting a precedent for how condo-hotels will be developed in the city’s manufacturing zones from now on.

Responding to fears that Trump Soho would primarily be used residentially, D.O.B. got the developer to sign a restrictive declaration under which owners or their guests can’t inhabit a unit more than 120 days a year or longer than 29 days at a time. Failure to follow these terms could result in D.O.B. fines and audits.

Yet D.O.B. isn’t adding personnel to deal with this building, or future ones like it, and Trump’s management company will be responsible for seeing that the rules are followed. Sounds like the fox guarding the gilded henhouse to us.

Furthermore, the declaration’s critics—we feel correctly—scoff at the notion that D.O.B. would even have the wherewithal to monitor the building or do enforcement. Examples of this are myriad: Countless professionals live in Soho, an area supposedly preserved for artists’ housing, and faculty housing is being illegally used to qualify for the community facilities zoning allowance—and nothing is being done about it. What makes anyone think Buildings will beef up its enforcement of restrictive declarations for hotel-condos like Trump Soho?

Rules that seem to be unenforceable will be just that. Unless D.O.B. addresses this zoning aberration, developers will continue to exploit the situation, and the skyline and context of manufacturing zoned districts will be forever marred by hugely inappropriate structures.

Chelsea Nowturns one

Chelsea Now is celebrating a milestone: our first anniversary. In our inaugural issue on Sept. 29, 2006, we promised to bring you the latest news, politics and profiles, a full police blotter, coverage of local businesses and the arts, comprehensive events listings, and hard-hitting editorials on subjects that really matter to this rapidly evolving neighborhood. We think we’ve done just that, although we couldn’t have succeeded of course without the consistent input and contributions from readers and individuals from all walks of life in the neighborhood. A community newspaper depends on that critical energy, and we thank all who have joined us in producing what we hope is a truly valuable asset to Chelsea and the surrounding enclaves. Here’s to another fine year ahead of us.

We thought it only apropos on this, the eve of our one-year anniversary, that we run new photos by Q. Sakamaki, who shot Chelsea Now’s inaugural cover on Sept. 29, 2006.