Village Organization Presents Alternative Rezoning Plan For SoHo

LOWER MANHATTAN, NY — Rezoning in SoHo and NoHo remains a divisive subject across the city. A group of Lower Manhattan community organizations recently released an alternate rezoning plan for the two neighborhoods.

Village Preservation, which works to document, celebrate, and preserve the architecture and culture of Greenwich Village, East Village, and NoHo, teamed up with 10 other Lower Manhattan groups to present their own SoHo and NoHo rezoning plan.

The following groups support the custom rezoning plan:

• Bowery Alliance of Neighbors
• Broadway Residents Coalition
• East Village Community Coalition
• Lower East Side Preservation Initiative
• Lower Manhattan Loft Tenants
• New York City Loft Tenants
• NoHo Neighborhood Association
• SoHo Alliance
• SoHo Design District
• South Village Neighbors
• Village Preservation

The Lower Manhattan groups says its plan will "keep new development in context with its surrounding, help existing local retail businesses and facilitate new appropriately sized ones, and protect current artist residents, allow non-artist residents to legalize their residency, and ensure that new appropriately-scaled residential development includes affordable housing."

Village Preservation adds that the plan is in contrast to Mayor Bill de Blasio's SoHo rezoning plan that would "allow new development up to 2.4 times the size current rules allow and a deluge of oversized luxury condos."

Supporters of the mayor's SoHo rezoning plan say that it will help prioritize housing for low-income New Yorkers living in the notoriously expensive neighborhood.

The 11 Lower Manhattan organizations break their plan down into five components:

• Allow for residential developments for affordable housing without the use of upzoning.
• Expand inclusion and diversity through "deeper and broader affordability requirements."
• Strengthen residential rights within SoHo and NoHo.
• Retain, reinforce, and perpetuate the creative arts culture of SoHo and NoHo in any new developments or street spaces.
• Permit scaled retail openings without allowing "giant big-box chain stores" to take over the area.

You can read the full plan here.