125th Street Rezoning Sparks Debate on Affordable Housing Availability

After plans to transform 125th Street passed with an overwhelming majority at City Hall on Wednesday, many council members lauded Inez Dickens (D-Harlem and Morningside Heights) for the dramatic revisions she made to the city’s initial proposal. But as development plans drew one step closer to being realized, not everyone was cheering.

Harlem activist group Voice of the Everyday People continues to cry out against the program to revamp “Harlem’s Main Street.” According to the organization, the 125th Street corridor, which spans from 124th to 126th Streets and from Broadway to Second Avenue, has already begun to feel an influx of chain stores and new apartment complexes. Locals have walked down the street and begun to question whether it still feels like home, and the word “gentrification” lingers in the air.

In her proposal, Dickens spurned the original draft that the City Planning Commission sent to City Council, and negotiated with the Commission to increase the amount of affordable housing offered and place stricter limitations on building heights for new developments in an attempt to address the area’s dearth of affordable housing. When the full Council voted 47-2 for the revised plan, it was hailed as the most extensive affordable housing program in the city’s history, an initiative that would set a new precedent for development projects around the five boroughs.

But activists still fear that not only will Harlem become unrecognizable, but that it will become too expensive for its current residents to afford.

Yet Dickens’ modifications—which VOTE People Executive Director Craig Schley called “at best, the sugar on a sour pie”—may be a sweeter deal than activists realize.

According to the organization’s Web site, VOTE People’s worry is that affordable housing will be determined based on city-wide income levels rather than those of Harlem itself. Affordable and income-targeted housing prices are measured from the median income of a city or district—for all of New York City, the area median income is $71,300, but for Harlem, the AMI ranges from about $17,000 to $22,000. If the 125th Street affordable housing program was designed according to the AMI of the entire city, it would be out of the financial reach of most Harlem residents. But according to Dickens’ Chief of Staff Lynette Velasco, the AMI used to create the 125th Street plan ranges from $17,000 to $25,000.

Still, Schley said that Dickens “doesn’t define anything,” and he has reason to believe that affordable housing on 125th Street will be determined according to the pricier, city-wide AMI. “The thing is, I cannot verify to be true or untrue because there’s nothing in writing,” he said. For activists like Schley, the city’s go-ahead on 125th Street development does not shed light on what changes will really come to Harlem.

“I’m fighting to support and protect my community,” Dickens told the Council during Wednesday’s vote. She called the program one of inclusion that was “never before done in the history of this great city.”

Daniel Amzallag contributed to this article.

betsy.morais@columbiaspectator.com