Harlem Residents Split Over City Development on Frederick Douglass

After the postponement of a City Council subcommittee vote Wednesday on the proposed development of a 12-story residential building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Harlem residents and neighborhood groups vowed to continue fighting the plan, arguing that it has no real benefits for the local community.

The Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development has proposed to redevelop 2282-2284 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, which currently includes three privately-owned buildings and two city-owned impound lots, into a complex with 89 residential units, space for retail and community facilities, and an underground parking garage. HPD contends that the project will eliminate a long-standing eyesore in the neighborhood and provide affordable housing for locals, while community members have raised concerns about affordability.

“Everyone keeps trying to tell us that this is a great plan that will provide affordable housing for local people and attract new business to the area, but what they don’t realize is that what is affordable for the rest of New York is not always affordable for us,” local resident Stan Perrins said.

As part of the proposal, HPD has submitted a request for the area to be designated an Urban Development Action Area Program, which would provide tax benefits for developers to utilize the area for residential purposes. UDAAP applications are subject to a public review process of approval by the City Planning Commission, the City Council, and a non-binding community board.

Seth Donlin, press secretary for HPD, said that he believed the proposed project would provide real benefits for the local community by attracting businesses to the area and providing affordable housing for local residents.

Community Board 10 expressed strong reservations about the affordability of the housing and raised concerns about the proposed on-site parking garage.

“This stretch of the road is already incredibly busy and I think it’s very worrying that they are intending to put a new 150-space parking garage into the area,” CB10 member Julius Tajiddin said.

“All these cars will have to enter and exit directly onto the road and that seems to me to be both incredibly disruptive and, more importantly, dangerous for local residents,” he said.

The role of the community board in this process is advisory, though, and despite its ongoing protests, both Borough President Scott Stringer and the City Planning Commission approved the proposal, allowing its subsequent appearance before the City Council Land Use Subcommittee of Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions.

While the local community originally feared that the plan had become a forgone conclusion and that locals would have no further chances to formally oppose it, the subcommittee decided Wednesday to postpone its vote to Feb. 25 to allow for a more thorough investigation of the situation, granted at the request of council member Inez Dickens, D-Central Harlem and Morningside Heights, whose district includes the properties in question.

Lynette Velasco, special assistant to Dickens, declined to comment on the postponement but said that the council member “always likes to thoroughly investigate anything that concerns her district. She takes the issue of housing in Harlem very seriously and wants to make sure all proposals are examined properly.”

Meanwhile, HPD remains confident that the council will approve the project and say that the postponement is a routine part of the application process—a view that is echoed by members of the community.

“If subcommittees are genuinely looking into the situation then that’s great, but I don’t think they really are,” Perrins said. “They want this development and as long as they can be seen to pay lip-service to local residents they don’t really care what we think. This isn’t over yet though—we will continue to fight until eventually someone, somewhere, has to listen.”

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