Lower East Side, Chinatown Residents to Demand Mayor de Blasio Step Down Over Rezoning

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Several community groups from the Lower East Side and Chinatown will be kicking off a series of protests outside City Hall Wednesday morning against Mayor Bill de Blasio and what they believe are his discriminatory rezoning policies in their neighborhoods.

Community members have accused the mayor of blatant racism in his rezoning policies for a rezoning they said protected the wealthier East Village and not their communities of the Lower East Side and Chinatown.

Thousands of people in the Lower East Side and Chinatown community formed a coalition eight years ago, which was meant to establish a rezoning plan that would protect the entire area, particularly the waterfront, from towering luxury developments. The coalition formed in direct reaction to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's approval of a 2008 rezoning plan that protected 111 blocks on the Lower East Side, half of which were in the East Village, with 75-foot height restrictions.

But the coalition's rezoning plan that would encompass all of the Lower East Side and Chinatown has been repeatedly rejected by the City Planning Department, said JoAnn Lum of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

The neighborhood's communities have worked on a compromise with the city on just a part of the neighborhood to be rezoned. But thousands of people who have lived in the LES and Chinatown for decades are extremely upset with what they see as a plan that just doesn't cut it and will continue to allow the luxury developments that are pushing them and other low-income residents out of their homes.

"When they're putting it off, they're encouraging more high rise development and luxury which is causing more displacement," Lum said about the city.

The coalition believes pushing for the rezoning of just the historic part of Chinatown is "leaving the majority Latino and African American Lower East Side vulnerable," it said in a statement. The group also warned zoning just one part of the community "will increase racial tension among the different communities living in the area."

"People are really upset all around the city at the mayor's rezoning policies," Lum said. "City elections are next year, this is the time when people really want to make their voices heard about what our communities need. And that de Blasio's gotta get out now if he's not willing to cut his ties with these developers."

Hundreds of people are expected to demonstrate outside City Hall (Broadway side) on Wednesday, Oct. 26, beginning at 3:30 p.m.

Photo credit: CityRealty