Editorial

Lessons to be learned in Downtown rezoning

With the announcement this week that the city has certified the uniform land use procedure, or ULURP, for the East Village/Lower East side rezoning, it’s worth taking a look at the past and future impacts of other zoning efforts along the similarly fast-growing West Side.

The sprawling rezoning plan for the East Village/LES—which encompasses 114 total blocks—received support from the Department of City Planning, and could go into effect at the end of this year after the ULURP process and City Council approval.

While the patchwork of West Side neighborhoods—from the far West Village and Meatpacking District, up through West Chelsea and into Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen—differs in many respects from the East Village/LES, there is a lesson to be learned in the community’s active participation in the process.

Back in 1999 when Chelsea’s first rezoning took effect, the Giuliani administration demanded some concessions of the community that allowed for the upzoning of some areas as a trade-off for the downzoning of others. The aspect generally overlooked in this case was the inclusion of affordable housing—an idea the Bloomberg administration and community have incorporated into the East Village/LES plan, giving developers incentive to include this provision in exchange for larger development rights.

Chelsea can still benefit from future rezonings as the area remains in demand for construction, especially in and around the High Line, where current zoning laws will enable out-of-scale development to ring the elevated park.

In West Chelsea, certain areas of the manufacturing zone were left out of its 2005 rezoning plan, in part to benefit the myriad art galleries that dot the district. But gallery owners have not been exempt from ballooning rents—as was the case with this week’s closing of the well-established Clementine Gallery (see page 1)—allowing residential conversions to creep in.

In Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen, the community has gained some traction in its effort to rezone parts of 11th Ave., a stretch where developers have been casting an eye to the sky. A commitment by the Department of City Planning to review rezoning there took a backseat to work in Harlem and the East Village/LES, but we trust that City Planning will soon revisit the issue in earnest to prevent 40-story buildings from sprouting up next to the traditionally low-scale brick walkups to the east.

While a blanket plan would be more desirable than spot zoning of specific pockets of these neighborhoods, the community needs to be the engine driving for change in either case. Downtown advocates who have cried foul at Chinatown and the Bowery’s exclusion from the East Village/LES rezoning would do better to accept that an already in-motion plan is better than one mired in protest. West Siders can take the lesson here—whether it be in West Chelsea or Hell’s Kitchen—that while the city might not acquiesce to the desires of all, the community’s insistence on being involved will at least be rewarded.