SoHo Residents File Lawsuit To Halt Controversial Rezoning

SOHO, NY — An organization of SoHo and NoHo residents filed a lawsuit Thursday to halt the neighborhood rezoning passed in December— arguing that the city's plan won't create the affordable housing it promises.

The suit, brought by the nonprofit Coalition for Fairness in SoHo and Noho, seeks the annulment of the SoHo-NoHo rezoning, meaning that it would be considered to have never been passed.

"This rezoning is a land grab by big developers disguised as redistribution of wealth," the organization's attorney Jack Lester wrote in a press release about the suit. "It violates the constitutional rights of the city’s longtime residents including the elderly, retirees, artists and working families."

The group says the rezoning will displace current residents, possibly allow "large-scale demolition" of Historic Districts within the two neighborhoods, create a developer-friendly space for luxury buildings, and not create the affordable housing it promises.

“The Coalition for Fairness in SoHo & NoHo fully supports the creation of new affordable housing in our neighborhood," writes Maria Judith Feliciano, a petitioner on the suit and a longtime SoHo resident. "The problem is that this rezoning plan provides no guarantee that any affordable housing will ever be built, and its loopholes actually incentivize developers to build office and retail buildings rather than affordable housing."

The debate over exactly what type of housing the SoHo rezoning plan will create has been ongoing

The city estimates that the rezoning of the 56-block area will create around 3,000 new residential units.

On one hand, bigger developers will benefit from being able to construct market-rate apartments in one of the city's most expensive ZIP codes. However, the de Blasio administration insisted throughout the process that the new development will also create roughly 900 apartments deemed affordable under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy.

The policy forces developers to reserve a certain number of units for residents making a percentage of the area median income.

The math on this gets complicated quickly, but City Limits provides a helpful breakdown that shows at least some of the new apartments will cost less than $1,000 a month.

You can check out that breakdown here.

The Coalition for Fairness in SoHo and Noho was "formed to help protect the rights of SoHo & NoHo working families and individuals, retirees and artists (conforming or not) to keep their homes without unprecedented fines and forced conversions."