El Barrio Residents Win One

El Diario/La Prensa, May 6, 2006

EDITORIAL

In a sweet and rare victory, the residents and elected officials of East Harlem were able to convince the Bloomberg administration that plans to build a huge complex of luxury towers, commercial space and an MTA bus depot would overwhelm the neighborhood, and that developers had not adequately consulted the community before planning the behemoth.

In a neighborhood with the highest rate of childhood asthma in the nation, the bus depot in particular was a very bad idea.

The real estate market is booming, and El Barrio has become attractive to developers and people priced out of other neighborhoods. But longtime residents, merchants and poor people are worried about being squeezed out, and with good reason. Developers don’t necessarily take into account the history, character and current residents of a community when there’s money to be made.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation first issued a request for proposals to develop the city-owned land, running from 125th to 127th Streets and from Second to Third Avenues, in 1999. The EDC named Urban Strategic Partners as the developer.

But the proposed Uptown New York project grew and grew. Last fall, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, City Councilwoman Melissa Mark Viverito, and members of Community Board 11 formed a task force to discuss their concerns with the city. The $1 billion development called for four 25- to 30-story residential towers, 700,000-square-feet of commercial space, 1,500 apartments, 1,000 parking spaces and the underground MTA bus depot.

It was too much. The Bloomberg administration made a good decision to stop the project. Now the EDC will issue a new request for proposals, and the city will have the opportunity to select a development that balances the interests of the existing community with those of the new people moving in.

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