Coalition to Protect Chinatown

Members of The Coalition to Protect Chinatown & Lower East Side

Chinatown residents, community board members and leaders gathered at East Market Restaurant on Thursday afternoon to discuss about the Chinatown and Lower East Side Special District Rezoning plan.  The meeting and presentation was put together by The Coalition to protect Chinatown and Lower East Side, or simply known as “The Coalition.”

The Coalition hopes to accomplish two main goals. One is to protect existing affordable housing and second, to create more affordable housing in Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

The presenters included Bethany Li of Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund (AALDEF), Wah Lee, of Chinese Staff & Workers Association, Brian Paul from the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development (CCPD), and Michael Lalan from National Mobilization Against Sweatshops (NMAS).

Li said at the start of the presentation how ‘The Two Bridges proposal,’ would not work. The Two Bridges proposal stated that the current zoning in Chinatown/LES would not endanger the community and promotes the City’s model of “inclusionary housing.” However, according to the Coalition’s findings, the City’s amount of affordable housing has decreased by 16 percent under Mayor Bloomberg’s policies.

Brian Paul, a fellow of CCPD presented a slideshow with statistics that threatened affordable housing for Chinatown/LES residents. For example, since 2005, there have been 19 luxury condominiums built (e.g., 31 Madison Street, 55 Hester Street, 93 Bowery Street and 60 Orchard Street), each apartment averaging about $2,500 a month to rent, or over $1 million to buy. However, many households of the Chinatown and LES community make an annual salary ranging from $14,240 to $56,690. The Coalition Plan’s first goal is to protect affordable housing.  The Plan proposes several policies to do so:

- Restrict private developers to 5-6 story buildings within certain subareas, therefore discouraging property owners to simply neglect and demolish existing tenements and replacing them with luxury high rises.

- New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) land would require a separate community review for any development proposals.

- There is also currently no regulation in place to protect tenants in rent-controlled apartments. The Coalition proposes a “Certification of No Harassment.”

- Small businesses would also receive protection by establishing a “Neighborhood Commercial District” that would require banks and corporate chain stores to obtain a special permit in order to open for business.

- There would also be a special permit required to convert industrial space into residential space.

The Coalition Plan’s second goal is to create affordable housing on possible sites like existing NYCHA land,  Seward Park and the DEP site on Pike Street. The Coalition also has several other proposals:

- The City should modify its current “inclusionary housing” system to include 20 percent affordable housing if tall luxury towers are to be built.

- A site-by-site review by community board members will ensure that large condos can only be built if they do not interfere with existing historic, rent-regulated buildings. This policy would also discourage the frenzy of real estate estimates and tenant displacement that can happen when a street gets up zoned.

- New affordable housing should be targeted to a range of community incomes; in this case of Chinatown and the LES neighborhood, the median income would be $35,600.

Lalan (NMAS) urged the audience to take the Coalition’s Plan to churches, schools and community centers to help support and push the plan forward, to “gather strength in unity.”

At the end of the presentation, the floor was opened for a question and answer session. One woman stated that she did not live in Chinatown and asked why should any of this concern her. An elderly senior stood up and responded with a few questions of her own.

[Translation]: “Do you come to Chinatown? Do you come buy groceries? Do you come visit on the weekends? This is the first place many of us immigrants came to, it is Chinatown. We have to protect it.”