A 21-story Union Square tech hub faced fierce pushback from area preservationists last summer, but city lawmakers ultimately approved the project with promises to curb overdevelopment in the surrounding neighborhoods. Fast forward one year, and no tangible progress has been made on enacting zoning protections.
As part of the approval process, City Council member Carlina Rivera, whose district includes the tech center, negotiated neighborhood commitments from the de Blasio administration, including a pledge to create what she described at the time as a “protective zoning measure” in the neighborhoods south of 14th Street that would “regulate commercial development.”
That effort, at least in part, looks to include a new special permit for hotel development rising south of 14th Street between Third Avenue and University Place. Such an action is a far cry from the ambitious, sweeping protections advocates had hoped would preserve the neighborhoods’ character. Rivera’s office says talks with the city for “multiple land use measures” are ongoing, but would not not comment on specifics—and preservationists are frustrated that those protections have yet to materialize a year later.
“It is deeply disturbing to see that a full year after the approval, while the developer has moved full steam ahead with their project, there has been no movement whatsoever on any of these incredibly modest protections which were promised,” Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, wrote in a June 28 letter to Rivera and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The Department of City Planning, for its part, says it is working to address neighborhood concerns raised by the Council member and is combing through what a special hotel permit would entail for the area.
“DCP is actively working to respond to concerns of Council Member Rivera with respect to future development as well as preservation of existing housing in the Union Square South area,” says DCP spokesperson Rachaele Raynoff. “As such, we are examining what provisions a new hotel special permit might have in order to support an appropriate balance of uses to serve this community and the City.” A mayoral spokesperson echoed DCP’s sentiment.
The arrangement also came with less ambitious, but no less important, vows that have or will soon come to fruition. Among them is the recent landmarking of seven Broadway buildings, resource commitments from the City Council to ensure the historic Merchant’s House Museum is not damaged by neighboring development, and a city-led tenant protection campaign to educate rent-stabilized renters in the area south of the tech hub about their rights, which Rivera and the Mayor’s offices say will begin this month.
A tenants resource fair is in the works for July 30 and the Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit conducted outreach to 10,000 area tenants in 2018 to connect residents with housing resources. City officials continue to conduct tenant outreach on rent freeze programs, according to the mayor’s office.
“The City is moving forward on its commitments to the community,” said Jane Meyer, a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Those measures may not have checked every box on area advocates’ wish lists, but they were a worthy compromise for a tech hub that will help low-income New Yorkers get their foot in the door of the lucrative tech industry, according to Jeremy Unger, a spokesperson for Rivera.
“Councilwoman Rivera is proud that work is moving forward on a world-class technology training center that will finally bring new career pathways to low income residents and people of color who live on the Lower East Side and have largely been ignored by New York City’s tech boom,” says Unger.
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