Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Community groups advocating for low-income housing on these 2 East Village sites

Several community groups are hosting a public forum Thursday evening "to demand low-income housing" for the neighborhood. 

According to the meeting flyers, NYC owns "underutilized parking lots in our community, and we want to see affordable housing built on these sites."

The two examples cited are: 642-648 E. Sixth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C, which serves as NYCHA employee parking ... and 326-332 E. Fifth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue, which the 9th Precinct uses. 

Both of these properties could yield low-incoming housing, per the organizers, the Cooper Square Committee, This Land Is Ours Community Land Trust and the Sixth Street Community Center.
The forum starts at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 22) at La Plaza Cultural, the community garden on the SW corner of Avenue C and Ninth Street.

And as previously reported, a group called 5th Street Park Coalition wants a park for the space adjacent to P.S. 751 and currently used as a parking lot for the 9th Precinct on the block. 

Senior housing on this Fifth Street block is one of the points of agreement that came out of the City Council vote to approve the controversial SoHo/NoHo rezoning this past December

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fifth street site would be a really awesome true skateboard park built out with all the amenities rather than a shared space in Tompkins

Choresh Wald said...

Yes, please!

Anonymous said...

Excellent initiative! Much needed and deserving fullest support!

Anonymous said...

Honest question - where should the 9th precinct park? Their lot is always full, so those cars would go somewhere. It would be nice if they had an underground garage.

Anonymous said...

150% the city should be converting its owned property into affordable housing - including a large number of the gardens that are hardly ever open to the public. Build buildings with setbacks that have public green space and use the rest for affordable housing.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, these seem like good additions to the neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

Don't get your hopes up. If this does magically come to fruition, it'll simply be more luxury housing being built with a few "affordable" apartments included in the back of the building under the guise of helping the little folk out. And of course some politician will be scoring some donation money in return

Anonymous said...

YES!!!!!!!!

XTC said...

Not sure E 5 St is the best place for *senior housing.* As it's not specifically meant for long time residents of the EV why would seniors from other boroughs want to live in a place that is an expensive, rat infested, party town with very little green space or fresh air. To say nothing of the drug addicts, crack heads and crazies that roam about day and night. Are they going to plonk down $200 for a vegan dinner and pop over to Fig. 19 for a couple rounds of artisanal cocktails? And what about the elderly with chronic health issues who can't get out on a regular basis. Affordable housing for seniors sounds good in theory, in practice seems quite ill conceived

Brian Van said...

The city needs senior housing more than it needs anything else reasonably (or unreasonably) proposed for E. 5th Street.

Weird how there's always a bunch of anonymous commenters saying we don't need it and how seniors don't fit in here anyway. Seems like the antithesis of a lot of the sentiment of "preservation of communities".

Anonymous said...

And ... the anti-community garden contingent checks in (that you "Neighbor"?). Which community gardens should be demolished for "affordable housing"? Be specific. As you mentioned "set back" do you mean the large ones? Or maybe all of them?

And before anyone gets started on "supply and demand" do the arithmetic regarding twenty or forty extra market rate or lottery assigned affordable units in a city of > 2 million rentals.

The gardens are an irreplaceable part of the neighborhood. Housing is a much larger problem than your annoyance. If you're bent that you don't have access to a garden then join one!

Denny Salas said...

Looking forward to this!

Anonymous said...

Community gardens and NYCHA parking lots should be sold off to the highest bidders for market rate housing and the resultant funds put in a trust that will pay for the renovation of NYCHA apartments and the upkeep of public parks. Get top dollar for the available land and let that money go farthest within the community.

And let cops take public transit to their jobs just like everyone else in this city or they can pay for a garage.

Sarah said...

As incongruous as it may seem, the East Village is known as a NORC (naturally occurring retirement community).

John Penley said...

Note to organizers of this event....You might want to contact ABC NO RIO which has millions of dollars in the bank for construction of a new building on their old site but their director now says this rebuilding project is about 1 million short and the project has been stalled for quite a few years at this time. Perhaps some affordable housing could be added to the top of the new rebuilding of the old ABC NO RIO and enough monwy could be added to finish both prolects.

Anonymous said...

Underground parking lot…below low income housing…why isn’t this an obvious solution?

Anonymous said...

@8:13 PM
I believe this has been the plan all along.

XTC said...

@8:13- Underground Parking? ........Not sure what you're smoking but there NO WAY the City is going build underground parking. The cost would be astronomical. No, Nope, Never........or maybe you intend to set up a GoFundMe Page? Let me know how that works out......

Anonymous said...

there are plenty of us late middle aged residents of the east village planning for our impending senior years. i, like many of my peers, didn’t get married and move to burbs to have kids. we stayed here. this is our home. we want to stay and age here where we’ve lived for 30+ years.

you may someday sooner than you think be that old, single, still living in the east village and planning to retire alone. i think then you’ll look back on your post and have more empathy and compassion than you do now.

Anonymous said...

Does our community need a police parking lot?
Hell Yes!

XTC said...

@12:54- You can live anywhere you want. This *discussion* is about the indigent, and how and where limited taxpayer funds are spent. No need to get butt hurt. And btw it doesn't matter if one has lived in the EV for 60 years. One doesn't get to tell NYCHA where one wants to live. They dictate the terms. Highly unlikely you'd wind in the EV if you're in the low income category.

Anonymous said...

the people that are coming up with this don't even live in this neighborhood but want to take it over for 99 year think about that. Just wanted to say yes need for a police parking lot because the next step that nobody talks is that they will take the residents parking on 5 street and on the avenue. And if it wasn't for the police getting sanitation to clean the block of 5 street it will be more filth like before.