Village Org Blasts Group Pushing For Rezoning In SoHo

SOHO, NY — A Village community organization had strong words for a group campaigning for the rezoning of the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.

Village Preservation, formerly known as the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, blasted the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC) on Tuesday for "failing to disclose in its recently-released report that the group's board includes developers who stand to directly benefit financially from such an upzoning."

The rezoning plan would allow buildings in the neighborhood to grow much larger and taller, going from a limit of 100,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet.

The Citizens Housing and Planning Council released a report recently outlining how the rezoning project would allow for more equitable development and added affordable housing in the neighborhood.

"Rezoning SoHo/NoHo is a crucial first step in advancing an equitable development framework for New York City that prioritizes mobility for low-income New Yorkers into high-opportunity neighborhoods and the stability of outer-borough, low-income communities of color," reads the report from the council.

You can read Citizens Housing and Planning Council's full report here.

However, Village Preservation was quick to claim that CHPC isn't remotely interested in adding affordable housing, and that the company has board members that stand to directly profit from luxury buildings going in.

"It's the height of disingenuousness and hypocrisy for CHPC to claim they are calling for a massive upzoning of SoHo and NoHo to further affordability and equity, while hiding that their own board members have a direct financial interest and would profit tremendously from such changes," said Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman.

"They obscure the fact that the biggest beneficiaries of their plan, which would result in huge buildings not currently allowed and vastly increased amounts of luxury housing, are the developers, large land use law firms, and City Hall lobbyists represented on their board," Berman added.

The Village Preservation organization specifically mentions Citizens Housing and Planning Council board member Edison Properties as a company that would benefit greatly from the rezoning. The real estate company owns a parking lot at Lafayette and Great Jones Street, and a parking lot at Centre and Hester street, where it would be allowed to build a much bigger property if the rezoning were to go through.

"The report recommendations are motivated by CHPC's mission to advance practical and equitable housing solutions for the City," Citizens Housing and Planning Council Executive Director Jessica Katz told Patch. "By contrast, the opposition to this rezoning is driven by an exclusionary and entitled approach from those who feel SoHo is theirs and theirs alone."

Citizens Housing and Planning Council was founded over 80 years ago, and has recently focused on influencing New York State policy to allow more affordable housing to get built, and inspire zoning reform to facilitate affordable housing production, according to its website.