NEW YORK CITY—The Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit contesting the East Harlem rezoning that is a key part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's neighborhood investments plan for developing affordable housing. The plan was approved by the New York City Council last year.
The non-profit advocacy group is challenging the city's methodology in measuring the rezoning's potential to displace rent-stabilized residents in the neighborhood. It asserts that the East Harlem rezoning, impacting six million square feet of land and thousands of residents, is one of the largest recent land use reclassifications.
“From Brooklyn now to El Barrio, the city continues to employ a flawed methodology that ignores that realities facing rent-regulated tenants and the consequences of land use decisions on their rents and livelihood,” says Jennifer Levy, Supervising Attorney of the Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid Society. “The East Harlem community spoke loud and clear against this rezoning during the ULLURP process. Both ends of City Hall ignored their cries but we listened.”
The Legal Aid Society argues the method for estimating potential indirect displacement is flawed because it assumes that only non-regulated tenants are at risk. As reported in GlobeSt.com, the plan which brings $178.2 million in investments to the area allows for the construction of high-rise luxury apartments.
The Legal Aid Society notes that the introduction of above-market units to a neighborhood puts regulated and unregulated tenants at risk of being priced out of their homes. It claims ignoring the effects of gentrification compounded with rezoning exacerbates housing pressures and will accelerate tenants losing their homes. The group also contends that the manual used for the study did not comply with the legal requirements for public notice and comment.
The organization plans to combine this case titled Gladys Ordonez and Nelson A. Henao v. The City of New York with litigation filed against the Bedford-Union Armory development plan, which has a March court date.
Renata Pumarol, deputy director of New York Communities for Change, says weakened rent laws ignore the impact of “gentrification harnessing” in rezoning plans, neglecting low-income people struggling to stay in their homes. “As long as this is city policy, their housing plan will serve the profit-motive of developers and financiers and look the other way when it comes to the needs of low-income New Yorkers.”
In addition, community activists from groups including Community Voices Heard, East Harlem Preservation, Inc., Organizing and Policy at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, Tenants & Neighbors, and Picture the Homeless voiced support for the lawsuit.
Melissa Grace, a spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio, provided GlobeSt.com the following response to the complaint:
“It's a sad day when groups try and grab headlines by trying to halt new schools, parks, anti-eviction services and thousands of affordable apartments for some of the lowest-income New Yorkers. The plan invests in the very people who call East Harlem home today. We stand by it.”
The mayor's office points to the tenant protection measures that are part of the rezoning: specialists going door-to-door informing tenants of their rights against harassment and eviction, and making referrals for free legal support; universal access to counsel in housing court; the Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force that investigates and brings enforcement actions against landlords who are driving tenants from rent-stabilized apartments; and a pilot program that requires owners of buildings identified as being a risk for harassing tenants, and making these owners obtain a Certificate of No Harassment before obtaining building work permits.
In addition, the rezoning demands that developers include 1,288 units as affordable housing with the new development, and 2,600 affordable apartments prioritized for publicly-owned lands. With the rezoning the city also committed $50 million for capital improvements for New York City Housing Authority properties in East Harlem.
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Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
