In December, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) announced plans to redevelop the city-owned lot into inclusionary housing. The 9th Precinct uses the 11,540-square-foot site between First Avenue and Second Avenue for parking and various towed vehicles.
Affordable housing on this parking lot was one of the points of agreement in the City Council's December 2021 vote to approve the controversial SoHo/NoHo rezoning.
Here's more about the RFP process via the HPD:
No one understands neighborhood conditions and needs better than those who live and work in the community. HPD values this expertise, which is why community engagement is central to the affordable housing development process. The goal of this outreach is to identify priorities for housing, services, and community amenities.
You can sign up to receive email updates about the project here.
The public workshop will be held on Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at University Settlement's Speyer Hall, 184 Eldridge St., between Rivington and Delancey on the LES.
Meanwhile, the 5th Street Park Coalition is advocating for a more expansive use of the space, including the adjacent playground at P.S. 751, in what would be "a comprehensive rezoning plan which accounts for affordable housing, greenspace, public community space and a new public school play area."
Per organizers:
We are seeking a holistic combination of both lots, 324 and 310 (which used to be public to the community). No reduction to the size of the current planning for Affordable Housing nor the nearby school to lose any of its valuable resource.Our goals are to work with HPD, DOE and SCA on a mutually beneficial school redevelopment, affordable housing overlooking a small greenspace with a public component and potentially more with the police department. Our goal is organization.
Find more information about the Coalition here.
Previously on EV Grieve:
5 comments:
The "5th st park coalition" is such an obvious astroturf campaign by the cops... They don't want to lose any parking spots and are advocating for a park with a huge parking lot under it for their use and they are going to deny badly needed housing because of it.
They already park illegally on 5th st on the block of their precinct. That they just decided to do angle parking on their own is pretty annoying and unsafe... but the worst is they park in front of all hydrants on the block at all times. This is bad anywhere, but in a neighborhood that has had two horrible fires in the recent years it's unconscionable.
So wahh boo hoo, you can't park your cars easily, poor cops. Take the train to work like everyone else.
The term "affordable" is a euphemism. Affordable for who? What needs to be built in the East Village is Low Income Housing like the long time community organization, Lower East Side Peoples Mutual Housing Association, builds. Long live Mary Spink!!
The 5th St Park Coalition might want to keep in mind that the playground that they so cavalierly want to include in their increasingly irrational plan belongs to a District 75 school and is used Monday through Friday, weather permitting, by the kids at that school. These children and their school have traditionally been underserved and under resourced. It has always been a school playground, not a community space. It was (and probably is) supposed to be open to community kids after school hours per some order issued during the Bloomberg administration, but, as far as I know, the 9th Precinct is responsible for putting an end to that. The community was promised an affordable housing project for our low-income neighbors in this space and that is what the community needs.
Interesting comments. I was led to believe early on in the 5th Street Park campaign that it was a much different endeavor than what is described here. Agree with Janet. The precinct is so petty and omnivorous that they even got rid of all but one of the benches across the street. Homeless people always hung out there. Where else are they supposed to go.? But once the delivery guys started congregating the benches were gone. Neighborhood people miss the benches too. Hope this housing development has a plaza with trees, greenery and benches.
First the 5th Street Park Coalition was started by a resident who lives next door to the parking lot. If you did any research you would find they also want to get rid of the parking lot. The Precinct has nothing to do with their proposals.
In addition the police will not lose any parking spots on the block because the entire street will be turned into POLICE PARKING ONLY as is done in all the other precincts in NYC.
And it was not the police who decided to close the schoolyard to the public and remove the benches - it was the school. That property belongs to the Board of Education. The closing of the schoolyard after school hours was because people would bring their dogs into the space where the dogs peed and pooped. This was not healthy for the students who played sports in the yard. And since the little "parklet" also belongs to the school THEY told the police to. remove the benches. A man who regularly made the furthest bench to the west his "home" was found with a gun. In addition men would regularly expose themselves while peeing in that western corner while the students were in the yard.
Get your facts straight before you blame the precinct for everything because no matter what happens they will indeed have parking spots.
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