July 24, 2020
Northern Manhattan is Not for Sale Statement on the Appellate Division Decision
Our fight was always for a just rezoning, which meant decent, affordable housing for working class people and long-term leases and eviction protections for our small businesses.
Many of us are spending too much of our money on rent, and getting through each month is hard. Even when the economy was strong, we were stressed.
COVID-19 hit our community hard. The infection rate, the deaths, the isolation, the unemployment and loss of income, the hunger, and the demand that essential workers continue working—all of this added to our stress. Even worse, many in our community have not been eligible for federal or state aid.
Housing stability would blunt the effects of unemployment, low wages, illness. But the Inwood rezoning will not provide housing stability for us. The Inwood rezoning offers housing at rents that are mostly affordable to an incoming White middle class.
During the environmental review, we asked the City to study the impact of the proposed rezoning on Asian, Black and Latino households and on minority- and women-owned small businesses. We believed that higher rents would force longtime residents out of the neighborhood and shutter the small businesses that anchor our community. These were among the arguments we made in our legal challenge in state court.
In December 2019, we won in Supreme Court, but the City appealed.
Now, the Appellate Division has just told New York City that it can ignore the concerns of communities like ours during the environmental review of any land use process, and was not required to do any racial impact study. Just like that, the Supreme Court ruling that annulled the rezoning was reversed.
We will fight on for tenant power, racial justice, and community-led development. Join us in our campaign to cancel rent, to defend our neighbors from evictions, to pass the racial impact study bill in the City Council. In the coming weeks, we will also be having discussions as a community about whether to ask the state’s highest court to hear our case against this unjust rezoning. Regardless of our decision, we know we have justice on our side. The City will change its policies, either when it wakes up to the systemic racism embedded in its planning process or when our movement’s power forces the change. Until then, we move forward together with the truth that housing justice is racial justice.
Northern Manhattan Is Not for Sale
http://metcouncilonhousing.nationbuilder.com/
Met Council on Housing · 168 Canal St, FL 6, New York, NY 10013, United States