Inwood Small Business Owners Fear Upcoming Rezoning

INWOOD, NY — A group representing Inwood's small business owners fears a controversial city plan to rezone the neighborhood will result in the displacements of the area's beloved "mom and pop" stores, the group said during a press conference days before the city council will vote on the rezoning.

The group, called the Inwood Small Business Coalition, called on the City Council to either vote down the rezoning proposal or put in place a moratorium on the vote so neighborhood businesses could further study the impacts of the plan. The rezoning proposal was modified behind closed doors before a Thursday committee vote and a few days isn't enough time to assess how the changed plan will affect businesses, coalition spokesman Josue Perez said.

Perez called the city's current plan "discriminatory" and said it will push local businesses out of a community that is 70 percent Spanish-speaking. The main fear of the coalition is that upzoning a large portion of the neighborhood will encourage landlords to force out small businesses to redevelop their lands or sell their vacated buildings to speculators.

The coalition also cast doubt on City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez's promise of a first-of-its-kind commercial rent control program. State Senate candidate Robert Jackson said that such a program would need to be passed as a new law, which isn't a sure thing to occur after the rezoning.

The small business coalition also criticized the de Blasio administration's outreach to businesses in areas affected by the rezoning, saying many business people who are too busy to attend community meetings just learned about the rezoning plan in recent weeks and months.

"That fact of the matter is, due to the lack of certainty and the threat of losing their business there is a lot of anxiety among the small business owners and we're seeing it everywhere," Perez said.

One of those axious small business owners is Pedro Richiez, who hosted the press conference at his Mina Restaurant. Richiez, a resident of Inwood since his childhood, said he was only able to open his restaurant a month ago due to a long struggle with Con Edison and is already in fear of losing his business because the rezoning will turn his building into an attractive development site.

"I don't sleep at night. I don't," Richiez said. "Every penny of my wife's hard work for years — we have borrowed money, we have saved — it's on the line. I'm worried right now."

Richiez — who also owns La Minita restaurant next door to his new business — said that he was unaware of the city's efforts to rezone Inwood because of his eight-month struggle to open his restaurant. The restaurant owner didn't hear about the rezoning until he overheard a conversation about it in his pharmacy.

"The people that are supposed to help us and support us, they're being sold out I think," Richiez said. "I didn't think like this before, but now it's happening to me."

Yudelka Disla, who owns El Camino Auto Parts on 10th Avenue, echoed Richiez's concerns and added that new residential development in Inwood may harm some long-time businesses. Disla's store mostly caters to a low-income customers who need auto parts to fix up their aging cars. An influx of more affluent residents may render her business obsolete, she fears.

"It scares me because it will be a dramatic change for the community," Disla said. "It's a community that is mainly low-income families and luxury buildings will make a dramatic change."

The modified version of the plan passed without opposition Thursday in the City Council subcommittee on zoning and franchises. The committee approval and support from Rodriguez point to a likely approval from the full city council on Aug. 8, which will bring an end to a three-year process to rezone Inwood.

Read more about Thursday's vote here.

Photo by Brendan Krisel/Patch