washington heights the last bastion manhattan

#Washington heights the last bastion manhattan full

Opponents of the plan say the rezoning is not contextual and does not line up with the character of the neighbourhood. 'He said: 'Don't think you can keep this nice neighbourhood all to yourselves',' Mondesire recalled. She still remembers a conversation with a city planner at one of the earliest rezoning workshops. Residents in neighbourhoods such as East Harlem and East New York say they already faced displacement because of rising housing costs and argue that the changes would bring an increase in market-rate apartments and speed up the process of gentrification.Ĭheramie Mondesire, 71, a retired teacher, purchased a co-op in Inwood 43 years ago and is against the rezoning. Rezoning has been approved in four other low-income and mostly minority neighbourhoods and has proved to be equally controversial. Inwood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, at the northern tip of Manhattan Island inwood hill park Photo: Charley Lhasa. 'It's not over until it's over,' said Nova Lucero, an organiser with the Met Council for Housing, who is the lead organiser of the Northern Manhattan is Not For Sale Coalition.

One protester was arrested, and two others locked themselves in a bathroom in an effort they called #OccupyYdanis. There have been several protests in the neighbourhood as the City Council vote approaches, including a sleep-in last week at the district office of City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who supports the plan. 'Where will we go? This is the last bastion.' 'You talk to people on the street that you meet, and they've moved up here two, three years ago from Williamsburg, from Long Island City, from Harlem,' Ruskin said. 'The people who have been displaced from all these other neighbourhoods end up here because we still have affordable housing available,' said Jeanne Ruskin, 71, an actor and teacher who first came to Inwood when she was 10 to visit relatives from Europe and has lived on Seaman Avenue and Dyckman Street for 37 years.

The median rent in the district increased 38 per cent between 20, compared with 24 per cent citywide.īut some Inwood residents have made it clear they will continue to fight because they believe the soul and character of their neighbourhood is at stake. While many of Inwood's units are rent regulated, rents in Community District 12, which includes Inwood, Washington Heights and Marble Hill, are increasing at a faster pace than the city as a whole. Over the next five years, the city is also pledging to preserve 2500 units of existing affordable housing in Inwood.Ĭity officials say the rezoning will combat the gentrification that is already occurring in the neighbourhood. The city says the proposal would create and preserve 4100 units of affordable housing, including the creation of 925 affordable units on city-owned land.Īn additional 675 units would be created in the market-rate buildings because mandatory inclusionary housing rules require developers to build affordable housing into new projects made possible by rezoning. The new zoning would dramatically reshape the now largely industrial area east of 10th Avenue and allow for buildings between 18 and 30 stories tall that would include a mix of market-rate and affordable housing.

#Washington heights the last bastion manhattan full

The rezoning of 59 blocks in Inwood often referred to as the last affordable neighbourhood in Manhattan has been in the planning stages for almost three years.The City Council zoning subcommittee and the land use committee approved the rezoning last week, and the full council is expected to take up the issue on Wednesday. Yet, as part of his plan to rezone up to 15 neighbourhoods across the city, to facilitate the construction and preservation of 300,000 units of affordable housing by 2026, Inwood and some residents fear, its way of life stands in the way. It is not as if mayor Bill de Blasio wants to damage or alter the neighbourhood's character in any way.