Tribeca Residents Say Mayor Not Including Community in Deed Restriction Conversation

TRIBECA, NY — The nationally covered Rivington House scandal is now reverberating across communities in Manhattan that are fearful the same thing could happen to them. The community board for the Tribeca and Financial District neighborhoods decided in a planning meeting Monday night that it is urgent they get their two cents on the citywide issue of deed restriction changes before the mayor's office holds a hearing on the topic Nov. 1.

The planning committee members were frustrated they had just a few weeks after the City Council hearing on the Rivington House scandal to get a word in on the controversy.

"The city is pushing something before anyone's really had a chance to catch their breath," said Patrick M. Kennell, chair of the planning committee.

Members of the mayor's office and the city's Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) will propose their own legislative changes to the deed restriction altering process at the hearing in November.

Tribeca and Financial District community members don't think the proposed changes involve the community enough.

The mayor proposed a new set of rules for changing deed restrictions that involve four officials of the mayor's office and members of the DCAS. Community members argued this does not keep them informed or included in the conversation.

"These rules don't help the public interest, and we want them to stop or make them temporary, and we should be working on a legislative basis," said Anthony Notaro Jr., chairperson of the community board, describing the resolution.

The community board plans to write a resolution to be presented to the mayor's office protesting the mayor's proposed rules as written, committee members decided Monday night.

At a minimum, the community is pushing for a full Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) for deed restriction changes that could make a public property private. A ULURP is a thorough process that involves the public in a decision involving changing the land use of a property.

The community's planning committee members are also pushing for a piece of legislation drafted by Council Member Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Brewer to be considered by the mayor's office. The legislation, No. 1182, calls for the creation of a database of all deed restrictions, as well as a full ULURP process for whichever restrictions are deemed major enough to involve the community.

Some community members disagreed on how many proposals for deed restriction changes should have to go through the long, arduous, and often expensive, ULURP process.

"There's no such thing as a minor issue of changing the land use," planning board member Joe Lerner said. "All of it should go under land use [ULURP], no matter how small we might think it is. There's a reason why people want to change deeds, and usually it's for profit."

Board member Reggie Thomas disagreed. He said he knew from working with several nonprofits that the ULURP process was often an unnecessary hurdle in major developments.

"ULURP is pretty frickin' expensive, and if it's something the community is in favor of, it might be cost prohibitive to go through the ULURP process," Thomas said.

Jim Caras, director of land use for Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, told the committee that Brewer's office was worried that after the hearing, the mayor's office would move on and forget about the problem.

"Our concern is that on Nov. 1 they're gonna think, 'We fixed it,' and they're gonna walk away from the table," Caras said.

Caras added it would even be preferable for the mayor's office to publicly state that its proposed rules were only temporary, and that they were looking into the legislation drafted by Chin and Brewer.

"When you go beyond the public to private deed restriction changes, it gets to a very grey area," Notaro said. "So the community should be, on these things, one of the frontline hurdles before any decision or any determination is made."

Photo credit: Sarah Kaufman/Patch