Developers Paid 6-Figures For Inwood Rezoning Lobbying: Report

INWOOD, NY — Two developers behind planned Inwood apartment buildings paid lobbyists six figures over multiple years in an effort to support the controversial neighborhood rezoning plan that recently passed the City Council, according to a Wall Street Journal exclusive report.

Taconic Investment Partners and Madd Equities both spent more than $100,000 in 2017 and 2018 to lobby the city Economic Development Corp. — which designed and proposed the rezoning — and Inwood's local representative Ydanis Rodriguez whose support was key in the rezoning passing the city council, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Taconic is planning a building with at least 550 below-market units on West 207th Street near 10th Avenue and Madd is planning a building with more than 600 below-market units on Ninth Avenue between West 207th and 208th streets, according to the report. Both developments will bring more than 1,000 below-market units to Inwood, but rezoning opponents have aid that an influx of building will be a drain on the area's aging infrastructure and that many current Inwood residents won't be able to afford the discounted units.

The Inwood rezoning will upzone both the Taconinc and Madd building sites to allow developers to build taller buildings at higher residential densities.

Charles Bendit of Taconic Investment Partners told the Wall Street Journal that the six-figure lobbying push was a way to "reach out to those people in the community to put forth our rationale for development and for the rezoning and why we thought it was a good thing."

The New York City Council passed the rezoning proposal on Aug. 8 by a vote of 43 in favor, one against and one abstaining. The plan will rezone 59 blocks north of Dyckman Street to increase density and allow for greater residential and commercial development along 10th Avenue and in the largely industrial areas east of 10th Avenue. The blocks west of 10th Avenue are being rezoned in an effort to preserve the neighborhood's current residential character by implementing R7A zoning — a mid-density rezoning that caps building heights.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here.

Photo by NYC Economic Development Corportation