Rezoning Realities
Lower East Siders are not going gently into the dark night of the planned rezoning. Yesterday, about 100 protesters let Bloomberg know where they stand. Members of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side were there, making themselves heard.
The Coalition has been covering the city with arresting flyers featuring an Eric Drooker-style drawing of people being kicked out of their homes by a giant, evil developer. They also put together an excellent website.
Their DCP Plan page is packed with info, including lots of colorful maps and graphs showing how the white and affluent stand to benefit from the rezoning while everyone else is, well, given the boot.
It also includes a jaw-dropping rendering of a proposed development called Site 167, a ginormous Avalon-type condo box on Avenue D and 2nd Street.
Here's the same corner some months ago, as shot by Google Maps:
EV Grieve checked in on this corner back in July and found it ready for demolition. Below is the corner today. Notice that the still-standing building on the left and the Pioneer grocery store on the right are NOT included in the rendering of the glass box above. That is a big box.
It is quite clear, especially after hearing Amanda Burden's fantasy, that the future of this neighborhood is in peril. While we may be saved from 20-story towers, we will become ever more vulnerable to an unstoppable tsunami of squat, block-sized Avalons.
The EV/LES rezoning has turned out to be a big bait-and-switch, allowing what Save the LES reports could be a potential 124% increase in development (and accompanying eviction and demolition). In 60 days, unless something major changes, more than one “rich, rich, rich horrible person” will get their wish.
The Coalition has been covering the city with arresting flyers featuring an Eric Drooker-style drawing of people being kicked out of their homes by a giant, evil developer. They also put together an excellent website.
Their DCP Plan page is packed with info, including lots of colorful maps and graphs showing how the white and affluent stand to benefit from the rezoning while everyone else is, well, given the boot.
It also includes a jaw-dropping rendering of a proposed development called Site 167, a ginormous Avalon-type condo box on Avenue D and 2nd Street.
Here's the same corner some months ago, as shot by Google Maps:
EV Grieve checked in on this corner back in July and found it ready for demolition. Below is the corner today. Notice that the still-standing building on the left and the Pioneer grocery store on the right are NOT included in the rendering of the glass box above. That is a big box.
It is quite clear, especially after hearing Amanda Burden's fantasy, that the future of this neighborhood is in peril. While we may be saved from 20-story towers, we will become ever more vulnerable to an unstoppable tsunami of squat, block-sized Avalons.
The EV/LES rezoning has turned out to be a big bait-and-switch, allowing what Save the LES reports could be a potential 124% increase in development (and accompanying eviction and demolition). In 60 days, unless something major changes, more than one “rich, rich, rich horrible person” will get their wish.
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