For local residents concerned about West Harlem’s rezoning, city officials had a simple message Wednesday night: one more month.
On May 17, Department of City Planning officials will be ready to answer questions that have come up since City Planning’s last town hall in December, according to DCP project manager Melissa Cerezo.
“There are some updates that we want to share in the May meeting,” Cerezo said to local residents and members of Community Board 9 on Tuesday night. “At that point, I think we want to address a number of those issues at the same time.”
City Planning is now studying a 90-block area, from 126th Street to 155th Street between Riverside Drive and Edgecombe Avenue—excluding Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion area—to begin the approval process for rezoning. The rezoning will include restrictions on building heights in the area, in an attempt to preserve the existing character of the Manhattanville, Hamilton Heights, and Sugar Hill neighborhoods.
These changes are expected to increase non-residential development as well as open up more spaces for affordable housing.
The public review process for the rezoning has been scheduled to last from spring to fall 2011, though the timeline has been slightly delayed, Cerezo said.
“Our timelines are still moving forward,” Cerezo said, citing environmental review issues as the source of the delays.
At the December town hall, locals raised concerns about the additional permanent affordable housing units, which would be allowed to be up to 17 stories high, and the additional traffic and air quality problems that could result from an increasing population.
Two specific concerns raised on Tuesday were the fate of Montefiore Park between 136th and 138th streets and the buildings on 145th Street, where the plan proposes an increase in height restrictions. Cerezo said those issues will be discussed at the next land use and zoning committee meeting on May 17.
“That’s good to know, then people know their concerns aren’t going into a black hole,” Patricia Ju, chair of the Sugar Hill Block Association and CB9 member, said.
Javier Carcamo, assistant chair of CB9’s land use and zoning committee, addressed the negative feedback by emphasizing that the plan is not a blueprint, but a set of guidelines.
“People get scared when they hear of the 12-story buildings,” he said. “But they don’t see that now, a much higher building could be built there.”
Cerezo echoed the point, and said that rezoning would be a positive for West Harlem.
“I think zoning is a framework for development,” she said. “Just because something is zoned for something as such, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to occur. That’s what we’re working with, a maximum of what is possible.”
Local leaders like Ju say they have been working to make sure that the local voice is heard throughout the city’s process, and following up with officials like Cerezo is one step toward that goal.
“Especially in light of the Columbia expansion, sometimes it’s very easy to get pushed aside,” Ju said.
The rezoning would be the first large-scale rezoning project in the area since 1961, and Cerezo acknowledged the residents’ concerns.
“It’s about clarifying the objectives of the proposal,” Cerezo said about the May meeting. “We want to make the information as clear as possible.”
gina.lee@columbiaspectator.com
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