of the unified lend use for view procedure or ulip for short as part of this affordable housing plan the mayor is pushing rezoning to neighborhoods across the city to spur a new housing development that includes affordable units right now we're reviewing a proposal to rezone inward and hatton's northernmost neighborhood in wood is special is really special in this mixed income it is multicultural and there has an array of different businesses that form the backbone of the community and has local merchants and wholesalers on auto shops and parts suppliers they all fall over there meanwhile gentrification has been slower because of the so much of in woods housing is rent stabilized a lot of tenants are still at risk if we do nothing in this possible real estate pressure will eventually displace local residents and businesses it has started already but if we do the rezoning the wrong way we could make things worse recently my office said no to the current plan but we also mapped out how it could be fixed some highlights one the plan needs more affordable housing for sure to be affordable housing needs to be more affordable for sure we need support to help existing businesses ovoid displacement and to be out through the city doesn't have a plan on that issue in particular and in general we need to protect existing residential tenants with a new seven point five million dollar a year fund for legal services among other things with me today to discuss in wood the rezoning plan and our perspectives on what it gets right and wrong are two really wonderful people one saw the chair of community board twelve covering washington heights in the world and he has been a phenomenal chair and orlando or lend a little bit about the plan in it would so the main piece of the plan is to create a special district and then one and five  subdistricts within the special district and the special district allows the city to create very special zoning licenses or prohibitions that are outside of the traditional tool box of the zoning resolution but the five subdistrict that that the rezoning proposal creates are the sharman creek sub district which is located east of tenth avenue from two hundred second street two hundred and seven street there's been up and wedge subdistrict which is located along tenth avenue underneath the elevated one train from about two hundred seventh street to two hundred fifteenth street and there is a tip of manhattan subdistrict which is located from two hundred eighteen street two hundred twentieth street east of tenth avenue then you have the commercial you which is made up of dykeman street broadway between bagman street and two hundred seventh street and two hundred seventh street between ten thousand you and broadway and then finally you have the upline core which is essentially the remainder of inwood outside of those other sub districts in the sherman creek area of the main component of that zoning framework is going to be the conversion of what is essentially a manufacturing district to a residential district with some mix of commercial space as well and the upline wedge that's going to see a change from auto related businesses again to residential residential development in that district in the tip of manhattan it is mainly going to be preserved as a manufacturing district but a large chunk of that sub district is going to be to also facilitate residential development and then along the commercial you area there is going to be an increase and development potential of commercial space as well as a significant increase in residential development as well but the remainder of the area is essentially going to be zone what they call contextually to remain in line with the current and existing physical form of the neighborhood and that's essentially you know the most the simplest way to break down in his own image i just want to say for the viewers that we've put in our office we had a hearing we had about five or six hundred people as you know when we were in the process of our discussion and our proposal so we had this and then we put we sent this to nineteen thousand residents and it includes a map of all of it would in terms of the re proposal and if anybody is interested they can call our office even the old the process from our perspective has been submitted it's still very much in play in terms of the city council the same thing i want to say is you know thank you for that r harlem they don't know the amount of work that goes into it and the challenges of ok so we produce more affordable housing then that also means market rate what am i for income for the residents who would move into the portion  affordable and how long will that portion be affordable obviously in some cases if it's part of the mandatory inclusionary housing program that the mayor supports and that we support it's only a certain percentage twenty five maybe thirty sent anything more could end up being only for the life of any kind of property tax reduction so the nuances and details and the time that goes into producing all of these  complicated so so thank you very much for being here and we'd love to hear from your perspective what this means for proposed thank you thank you for having us here having the community board here and thank you for those kind words about the work we we've done this project i will say that  the community board did do a lot of good work and we certainly took the lead from your office on how to engage the community and an effective way this was this was a and still is a a interesting proposal because it's one of the once  in a generation we will have spot absorbing of buildings or properties every so often that's pretty common but it's not common to have an entire plant to rezone a neighborhood it's once in a generation i believe the last time in what was rezoned or propos over fifty sixty years ago so this was something very significant and we made sure that we engage the community in a way that it wasn't just one meeting we understood the board needed to understand this complex issue we have a wonderful land use chair voted not to support the plan but we viewed it more as a roadmap to how we can get support because there are advantages to be taking in this project but also as you said and i think is the correct way of looking at it you've got to make sure you do it correctly because if you do nothing that could be bad if you do it the wrong way it def it could be bad we have to make sure we take it one step at a time there are certain advantages but some of the viewers should know is that the board has for years advocated for certain aspects of this rezoning that we're happy are included such as potential rezoning of properties west of broadway to keep the context and you know these are big words and because of that even now i still have a hard time understanding but with but to the viewers it's of buildings are sixty eight stories tall it just it's out of place to put a tower there's twenty five thirty stories and we're seeing that all over the city luckily enough in what yet in what has been was the northernmost neighborhood in our in our borough in our county it's also has the least amount of new development so there is potential the stocks that while we do have the highest mark of rent controlled and stable as we also have the fewest new construction  if things are affordable and as the land i was speaking i started a list in the list has kept growing because the issues are always there this issue of affordability i know we've talked about a lot what is the am i what is the area median income in our resolution we ask that it's not the am i but the but the inwood base and those numbers well it would change a lot we ask the city to aggressively look at city owned properties for one hundred percent affordable and then there's also the in library project has been bundled into this you look at application or they also look at if it was market rate buildings to give us deeper affordability including that in wood project we also need to look at the functions of any project like this like if you're going to build and add more residents whatever that number looks like five thousand seven thousand are we addressing infrastructure are we addressing our trains or trains are stressed as it is our transportation system are we looking at better access to our bus lines so those are some of the considerations or late i love to hear some of your stories of people you met in the auto shops in the businesses can you share some of those stories people who have people who are working you know maybe with a high school degree but making a good salary and so was the fourth and there are concerns so over the past year as a way to prepare for your recommendation we felt that it was important to go out there and meets with individual business owners with individual residents and buildings that were recently purchased and so you know many people on your team were out on the street meeting owners of auto related businesses auto repair shops and just getting to know what their experiences given you know and what their fears are given that there is a resulting on the way  and you know what we found was that many of them have been in the neighborhood for three decades in some instances and the in and they they had the courage to move into those neighborhoods at a time when it wasn't as popular and there wasn't as much excitement around it and it was dangerous at times but many of them employ a you know three to four individuals who are you know some of which are new to the  country and this was an opportunity for them to find gainful employment provide for their families to send back to their families to where they're from and you know the current plan proposed will essentially make those businesses no longer conforming uses meaning that they will not be performing as of right and it's essentially hostile to the other business owners that we  met with and spoke to and even conducted zoning one or ones teaching them the basics of zoning located on the commercial you they are in great threat of being displaced and many of those folks have been in the neighborhood for decades as well and you know as you've always championed the small businesses they are and what you said earlier they are essentially the backbone of them and brought about these issues i'm like a crazy person on this topic so i would love to know from the i know you talked about the you know auto motive businesses and pop businesses were also bring up dykeman houses which isn't specifically in zoning but we want to move those residents are also so the board has sixty days to review we had this issue we have ten subject matter committees and it would rezoning was on every single committee we had it for at least three months in a row we had special specialty meetings with residents in fact some of the residents called streets the streets could be clean schools could be good but living here how does it matter you know doesn't matter to me i think your office and i want to viewers to know that your office did something brilliant which had i had i known ahead of time the board might have done it you put a paddle together where businesses came and gave testimonial and they put these real concepts you put a voice to those concepts and that was absolutely the feedback was amazing what our residents wanted was to be heard and have someone hear of them and that happened one of the big misconceptions is that the rezoning is a development plan but it's not a development plan is a change of laws which will then get to development so folks are worried about displacement the word about their that they're being kicked out so that's why that seven point five million for legal services is absolutely necessary so we don't have our residents being preyed upon so they can get out and the new development happens because you also have the problem in terms of the residential tennis's that thirty percent of your rent stabilized their rent regulated there are in fact preferential rents which means they rent could go up at any time but hopefully be delayed attorneys could assist with that sure and then the commercials the commercial that is a big concern only because it is a big concern in general because we have we don't have a lot of box big box stores you know and part of our resolution actually called for a limitation of square footage of commercial establishments other than supermarkets so we don't want the bank so we  don't we need banks but we don't need banks on every corner we don't need a c v s and every corner but we do need supermarkets so we called for if there was any development that would be designed for smaller businesses so these auto shops you know this is where this is the fabric every community is different  unique in what is a is the last real immigrant population and we're pushing people out with this development and the fear is real and we have to do things to help them so i know talking about the focus on diet women in that what we call the commercial you i mean one of the issues would be at the what we said was we would like to see retail and other parts of the plan that since i'm sure men creek or elsewhere before there's any discussion or movement  commercial you and i think the problem is that those tax payers i call them tax payers two stories could easily become yes housing of all kinds martin and affordable but you don't always get the commercial to come back and how in the world it would have to be a new concept that would mandate that that commercial come back but have to come back and a rent that's affordable is just what you said you can make this changes and then the people who live there will be there and the changes will be so that the commercials won't be there so when you talk to the folks in the commercial area did you see folks thinking that this will be good for them a baffle them all i saw indicated the mill was still unknown i think that there is a lot of fear that it's going to be bad for them there serious question as to whether their local retail can survive in new construction just because the rent the commercial rent is going to increase to a level that is just not sustainable for those types of businesses so their concerns are you know are rational and what you call in your plan is for a significant assistance with those small businesses either assisting them in relocating creating an incubator space where either new entrepreneurs or current entrepreneurs can can receive assistance and figure out new methods of operating and also providing you know some form of assistance to landlords to provide affordable commercial rent so that you know these businesses can continue to operate and new construction when his uncle is a city wide it's not just in england but i think it gets highlighted because in what has the most wonderful commercial sector now and protection for them and something else that we've heard was that everyone's welcome to it what everyone's welcome to in would find a way up there and when you get there you will know you're in what it doesn't look like any other part of the city the uniqueness of it it's just amazing and then when you see it you're going to say we need to keep it this way are small businesses employ local residents we don't have many people coming in to in word to work it's you're employing your neighbors or employing your friends and most times that's the only income  family this business goes so there's that income so there's so many collateral facts that that's what we were hearing were going to business owners who support themselves with a small business sometimes saving up all their life savings to start a business coming from somewhere else to open this this was their american dream and the american dream is being pushed out because of development they're worried about landlords not extending commercial leases something gayle you and i worked on was this commercial vacancies and stores being left open people  being pushed out paying one rent which was affordable and then tripling it which was akin to not even offering a real extension if rent has to go up keep it reasonable and within context of who you're offering it to but is it but it's a mechanism i understand as a business but it has to be a business with a conscience and that's what we have to hold these folks to the other thing that we talked about which is more positive i mean creek area what about access to the waterfront that's a good aspect of the plan one of the community board since you asked about that potential so there is certainly potential for development and we encourage that but then we also it's follows that all model if you don't ask for it you don't get it so with the potential for development we also ask for affordability and affordability for our residents build something like other issue that comes up a lot is you know like you said the infrastructure and students from some of the high school are often looking as a project about how little access you know because you don't have lost someone is the subway situation in the bus residents now are finding it difficult to commute and move around you add more residents but without a thoughtful plan as to what you can do with the subways that's a recipe for disaster our board had a member who passed recently i say it will be being who was always our con ed guy who always made sure that we were mindful of the infrastructure that we have to support for it so i think the city has to if the city wants to go through they need to address what affects the residents every day we could talk about theoretical plans like development but when i leave my home to go to work it's the subway you know so are you increasing service are you adding more cars are you updating the bus routes to make them easier to go through traffic do you think a little that i know is there are several other smaller wholesalers again you know these are all family own including flair the largest of them which was started in the fifty's and began you know after their family moved from the bronx and so you know the folks there also have gainful employment these are the types of jobs that you know new immigrants  don't always find when they arrive here and so they're able to support their families and you know make that step in social upward mobility and flair even  supports a lot of the bodil there's redemption in the area so for folks who are homeless or folks who are just you know just bronx but i i also am concerned about the library project i'm supportive as we know is very controversial affordable housing above one hundred percent working with the robin hood foundation i do wish that we could have a proposal that included the car wash next door because then we would end up with more affordable through the library will be beautiful when renovated and i also know that the library because we will make store finds a space to have library services and books don't forget those intersects with everyone from east to broadway west to broadway old young it serves so much more and when you think about a library it serves so much other functions other than reading a book or it's in the heat where people go to cool off to spend time childcare even so the thought of losing the large brewery but one said one second really scared people you know what that's one of the things where i had to say i agree so the city i also really that the project does have wonderful potential twenty eighteen the plan is now in front of the planning commission were tested see days to act then they go to the city council which will have fifty days to review it i'm gail brewer the manhattan borough president you can follow me on facebook or twitter my name