Community Board Takes First Step Toward Inwood Rezoning Vote

INWOOD, NY — Community Board 12, which represents Inwood and Washington Heights, took steps toward a final vote on the controversial city proposal to rezone a large swath of Inwood in order to promote residential and commercial development.

The board's executive committee unanimously passed a draft resolution that does not explicitly approve or reject the city's proposal. The resolution breaks down the city's entire rezoning plan point-by-point, supporting some proposals and opposing others.

The resolution is unique for the board, which generally votes to either approve a proposal with or without conditions or oppose a proposal with or without conditions. Land Use Chair Wayne Benjamin described the draft resolution as a "fifth type" of resolution, one reserved for proposals that require a more nuanced approach.

"We're saying that we've analyzed the plan," Benjamin said Thursday. "There are aspects of it that we don't like, there are aspects of it that we do like."

The in-depth nature of the resolution is intended to aid the Department of City Planning and the City Council in the next steps of the public review process, Benjamin said. Those two bodies have the authority to make changes to the actual plan, whereas the community board is simply an advisory vote.

Some highlights from the executive committee's draft resolution include:

• Requests to scale back the proposed zoning map to limit future building heights;
• Support for a special waterfront district;
• Asking that the proposed Inwood Library redevelopment be proposed as a separate plan instead of part of the neighborhood rezoning;
• Requests that all future below-market housing be offered at Inwood-specific rates of affordability;
• Preserving neighborhood character through landmarking significant buildings;
• A cap on size for types of future commercial establishments (not supermarkets);

The draft resolution also called on the city to engage with the MTA on infrastructure upgrades for Inwood and to begin a contextual rezoning plan for the southern portion of Inwood (181st Street to Academy Street) by the end of the year.

Because the resolution is still a draft, the document was not made publicly available during Thursday night's meeting. The board may choose to revise or add portions to the resolution before a full board meeting on Tuesday, March 20. The meeting will be held at 505 W. 218th Street near Broadway at 6:30 p.m. and the venue has a 100-person capacity, CB 12 chair Shah Ally said Thursday.

"What we have now, for the first time in this process, now we have a committee resolution," Ally said Thursday. "This resolution now will move to the general meeting. It can still be modified before the meeting, there will be a vote and that's when we will have an official vote."

On January 16 the Inwood NYC plan — which seeks to implement contextual rezoning to preserve areas west of 10th Avenue while upzoning underused areas east of 10th avenue — was certified for the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure

The city Economic Development Corporation has been pitching a neighborhood-wide rezoning to Inwood for about two years. After being booed out of a community board meeting in 2016, the corporation came back with an updated proposal in the summer of 2017 that featured contextual rezoning for areas west of 10th avenue and north of Dyckman street that aim to preserve the neighborhood's existing character.

The city estimates that the rezoning proposal will create "the potential" for 1,300 new affordable apartments int he neighborhood and publicly accessible waterfront spaces along the Harlem River.

Despite the city's promises, a group of residents from a number of community groups have criticized the plan as being a handout to developers. The groups formed a coalition, called Uptown United, which vocally opposed the plan throughout the years-long process and presented its own recommendations for rezoning. The coalition claims that the rezoning plan with accelerate gentrification in Inwood, threaten rent-stabilized housing and result in the displacement of longtime tenants and small businesses.

Photo by Patch