After years of tough negotiations and protests, the New York City Council overwhelmingly voted in favor of a controversial plan to rezone the SoHo and NoHo neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan Wednesday.
In a 43-to-5 vote, the Council approved the contentious plan that set housing advocates against preservationists in one of the city’s whitest and wealthiest areas. The rezoning aims to create up to 3,500 new apartment units, with as many as 900 of those subsidized for low- and middle-income residents through the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing requirement. It would also allow developers to construct new buildings as tall as 27-stories in some areas along Broadway and Canal Street, and formalize longstanding practices for large retailers who have had to rely on special permits and zoning variances in order to open up shop in the historic neighborhood.
Councilmember Margaret Chin, who represents SoHo and Chinatown, said the plan will open up the white and wealthy neighborhoods to more New Yorkers.
“Look, the zoning hasn’t been changed for almost 50 years. And this way, residential will be allowed, and mandatory inclusionary zoning will have to be implemented to create affordable housing here, so that working families will have the opportunity to live in neighborhoods like SoHo, NoHo, that have so much resources,” said Chin at Wednesday's meeting.
The proposed area the city is pushing to rezone for greater density.
Councilmember Carlina Rivera, whose Manhattan district includes NoHo, agreed, applauding the deal’s promise of making the neighborhood drastically more affordable for many New Yorkers, and noted that the rezoning would require developers to set aside about 20 percent of new housing stock for households that make about $42,000 a year.
“As a lifelong New Yorker, I am excited this is a direction we are finally going in, and I also know that SoHo and NoHo are amazing communities that are treasured for more than just their architecture,” said Rivera.
Decades ago, SoHo was something of an industrial wasteland, attracting artists looking for cheap loft space. Its reputation as a cultural mecca transformed the area into one of the city's most fashionable neighborhoods.
The rezoning was first proposed in 2015, when Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer asked city planners to come up with a plan to address the hoops that large retailers had to jump through in order to operate in a neighborhood zoned for artists and manufacturing. That changed in 2019, when the de Blasio administration released a plan geared toward creating thousands of new housing units. It was also one of the first times the mayor sought to upzone an affluent community, and became a major priority as he looked to secure his legacy on creating more affordable housing.
During his daily press conference Wednesday, de Blasio said this was a tremendously important moment not just for SoHo and NoHo, but for the city writ large.
“Not just because of new housing and jobs and the opportunity for local businesses to do better, but also because it says we need affordable housing everywhere in New York City, including in the most privileged communities,” he said.
But this is New York City, and naturally, not everyone is happy — in particular, preservationists who say the rezoning will lead to the demolition of historic buildings across the neighborhood. Andrew Berman, the executive director of Village Preservation, argued that because the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law only applies to residential construction, the deal would actually incentivize developers to build large commercial buildings.
“This is magical thinking on the part of the city. This plan doesn't require a single unit of affordable housing being built. It simply says, ‘Hey, we project this is what's going to happen. Now that we've made these changes to the zoning text,’” Berman said.
Meanwhile, housing advocates like Open New York executive director William Thomas dismissed those concerns as alarmist, and accused critics of the rezoning of wanting to “put New York City under glass.”
“We think it will revitalize the neighborhood, allow low-income, working class New Yorkers to share the opportunity and amenities of the neighborhood,” Thomas said. “Just a few years ago, it was politically impossible to rezone these sorts of wealthy, low-growth neighborhoods like SoHo and NoHo.”
While Rivera said the final plan was far from perfect, she called it an important step towards making New York City a fundamentally fairer place, and one that is in line with SoHo and NoHo’s history.
“We hold these neighborhoods in high esteem because of how residents at the time transformed them into a place that would welcome lower-cost homes for a blooming creative community. That is the legacy we sought to honor by incentivizing the creation of affordable housing above all else, while still balancing the needs of residents,” said Rivera.
