[NYguy]

http://thevillager.com/2016/06/02/ac...ry-high-rises/

Activists call on C.B. 3 to take a stand against wave of luxury high-rises-


June 2, 2016
By The Villager

Board 3 got an earful last Tuesday night from a coalition of Lower East Side activists who complained that the board was dragging its legs in the battle to stop the proliferation of luxury high-rises, hotels and other upscale developments that are displacing poor people who live in the neighborhood.

Members of the Chinatown Working Group — a coalition of grassroots organizations whose goal is to draft a master plan that would preserve housing affordability in a wide swath of Lower Manhattan — spoke out angrily at the full board meeting at P.S. 20 on May 24. They repeatedly demanded that C.B. 3 at its next monthly meeting issue a strong statement of support for the coalition’s housing preservation agenda.

“We want you to sign a pledge at your June meeting that says ‘no’ to more luxury development,” a C.W.G. member said. “This community board must stop dragging its legs on this issue. Low-income people on the Lower East Side and Chinese people in Chinatown are being treated as second-class citizens by the city and developers.”

A representative of the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops pointedly asked C.B. 3 Chairperson Gigi Li whether the community board was being “complacent “ on this issue.

“Do you stand with us or with de Blasio and the developers,” he said. “Are you going to leave us vulnerable to high-rise developers?”

Francisca Benítez, a member of C.W.G. and Chinatown & Lower East Side Artists Against Displacement, or CLAAD, made a desperate plea for action.

“Passing the C.W.G. plan is now more urgent than ever, with Extell and other skyscrapers being built on the Lower East Side waterfront,” she said. “C.B. 3 should support the community’s demand to stop Extell, and to ensure that no public subsidies or public assets be used to build luxury high-rises. Please sign the Chinatown Working Group pledge, and make a commitment to stand by the plan in full. We need C.B. 3 to help move the plan forward.”

Li responded that the community board is very involved on the issue, which will, again, be on the agenda of next month’s Land Use Committee meeting. Li later told this newspaper that the community board has been working hard to come up with a plan that would stop the proliferation of high-rise luxury development on the Lower East Side.

“We’ve been very involved with the Chinatown Working Group for the past seven years,” she said. “We remain involved and will continue to discuss how C.B. 3 can be most effective in moving the group’s zoning plan forward. It’s understandable that there’s frustration about the time it’s taken to work out the details. Hopefully, we can soon work out a beneficial plan.”

Board member Enrique Cruz, meanwhile, said after the meeting that the community board supports C.W.G. on the issue of curbing rampant development, but that C.B. 3, unfortunately, does not have the final call on this issue.

“We’re wholeheartedly on the side of the groups who want to stop massive high-rise and luxury development buildings in the area,” he said. “The board has already approved the Chinatown Working Group plan. But the problem is that there are different pockets of land involved, so it’s taking longer than expected to finalize a cohesive plan. The board has already reached out and met with city planners on this issue. But we’re not the final decision makers and I understand the frustration of these groups.”

The de Blasio administration rejected the C.W.G. plan for a Chinatown / Lower East Side Special District in March of last year, calling it “not feasible at this time.”