By: Hellen Zaboulani
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s controversial Inwood neighborhood rezoning plan was dealt a heavy blow. Manhattan Supreme Court judge Verna Saunders ruled in favor of residents and small business owners in the northern Manhattan community who sued in contention of the Mayor’s 59-block rezoning plan.
In August 2018, the City council had approved a contentious proposal to pump $200 million into neighborhood improvements projects near the Harlem River. Opponents complained that the efforts would drive out longtime locals who would no longer be able to afford staying there. They claim that gentrifying Inwood, would have “socio-economic consequences”.
As reported by the NY Post, this week Judge Saunders ruled that the city’s mandatory environmental review process was “incomplete” and did not suitably take into account the rezoning’s impact on the Northern Manhattan neighborhood. The complaints of “Unified Inwood”, or the coalition that raised the suit, were sent back to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, so that the issues raised can be further studied.
In response, the city’s Law Department made a statement saying it “strongly disagree[s]” with the ruling. “We stand by the city’s thorough environmental review and will challenge this decision so important projects, including the building of 1,600 new affordable homes in this community, can proceed,” the statement said.
On Friday morning de Blasio himself vowed to appeal the ruling to stop the big buildings from being added. “Always respecting the judiciary, I believe this is an absolutely wrong-headed decision by this judge,” de Blasio said on WNYC radio. “I believe that when this goes forward on appeal it will be — the judge’s ruling will be — overturned.”
The de Blasio administration had plans to open new parts of the uninhabited neighborhood to residential construction, with the aim of allowing up to 4,348 new housing units to be added over the next 15 years. A portion of them would be affordable. Some locals fear the changes would increase the rents, and push out small family-owned shops, leaving longtime residents and businesses in the dust. “It’s an ethnic cleansing,” said Lena Melendez, 53, of Northern Manhattan is Not for Sale, an anti-rezoning group. Currently, fifty-three percent of the estimated 42,676 Inwood residents are Dominican, and another 22 percent identify themselves as Latino from other backgrounds.
Before the vote, in August 2018, Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, representative of Inwood whose support was crucial for the rezoning, reportedly got “some extremely threatening messages, some death threats related to this,” as per statements by Council Speaker Corey Johnson. During the vote, inside council chambers, the drama continued with 26-year-old Stephanie Frias from up in the balcony, calling Rodriguez a “liar” and throwing fake bills into the air, signifying her view that the promises of high-paying jobs were ill-conceived. Other community members joined in criticizing the plan, spurring security guards and NYPD officers to clear out the whole balcony.
