The disagreements with the rezoning plan extend to the affordable housing units promised. Lara and Northern Manhattan is Not for Sale aren’t convinced it’s enough - even Brewer herself earlier called for $7.5 million in funding for anti-displacement initiatives. Grasping for any additional measures to stem the losses, Rodriguez and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer recently joined NYC Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer to announce a new $1.5 million pilot program to fund anti-displacement initiatives in key neighborhoods, including Inwood. The problem for Rodriguez and the rest of the city is that city’s rent stabilization laws are controlled at the state level, where, as ProPublica once reported, luxury real estate developers have had a stranglehold on legislators in New York. About two-thirds of those units have been in Manhattan. According to data from state regulators, since creation of these loopholes in 1994, they have facilitated a net loss of more than 147,000 rent-stabilized units across New York City. “Before any rezoning, we need real tenant protections, and protection for small business tenants,” says Lara, a member of Northern Manhattan is Not for Sale, a coalition of Inwood and Washington Heights residents who organized the block party.īy “real tenant protections,” Lara refers chiefly to eliminating the regulatory loopholes that have enabled predatory landlords to flip rent-stabilized housing into market-rate or luxury housing. But onstage on Saturday, on behalf of a coalition of Inwood and Washington Heights residents, Lara demanded that Rodriguez vote “no” on the rezoning that was partly his idea in the first place. “We’ve been targeted by predatory landlords for years now,” says Rodriguez. It’s a pattern so pervasive, the city initiated or expanded three programs last year to try and weed out the practice. They’re also needed, he says, to make up for the loss of existing affordable or rent-stabilized housing to predatory landlords who have swooped in with investor backing to flip affordable or rent-stabilized housing into market-rate and luxury apartments and condominiums.
The new affordable housing is needed, Rodriguez argues, because of the continued population influx from other parts of the city. “I can walk around these streets and feel comfortable as myself,” says Lara.Īfter several years of study and community engagement, at the invitation of Council Member Rodriguez, the city is now on the verge of deciding whether to rezone large swaths of Inwood, permitting taller, denser construction, thereby triggering the city’s two-year-old inclusionary housing law and resulting in new units of what the city considers permanently affordable housing. Many, like Lara, are also attracted to the strong Latino culture of the neighborhood, particularly its Dominican sounds, smells, and flavors. The area has two subway lines running through it, two landmark city parks (including the last remaining untouched wilderness in Manhattan), and more than 47,000 rent-stabilized units - more than any other neighborhood in New York City. The combined Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood sits at the northern tip of Manhattan, still considered a last-bastion of affordability by those fleeing the exorbitant and rising rents of Manhattan’s Lower East Side or as far as Brooklyn. This was no ordinary block party - it was a block party about zoning. Over the decades, Inwood has been home to many waves of immigrant communities, most recently from the Dominican Republic, and proudly so, including Lara.Īfter much dancing with her feet, Lara got up on stage to do a dance of words with New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. There were local bands, local choirs, percussion lessons for kids and a community art project where neighbors painted a banner saying “Nuestra Calles, Nuestro Barrio” - our streets, our neighborhood. Paloma Lara danced a lot last Saturday, at a block party she helped to plan in New York City’s Inwood neighborhood.
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