LATINO, CHINESE, & AFRICAN-AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES ANNOUNCE PLANS FOR THE REZONING OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE & CHINATOWN

In a press conference on Wednesday, January 20, 2010, members of the Chinatown & the Lower East Side community spoke out against the displacement of Latino, Chinese and African-American people and announced a new planning initiative that would prioritize the concerns of the low-income residents and workers and small business. In 2008 the City passed a controversial East Village/Lower East Side Rezoning Plan, which excluded the heavily Latino Lower East Side and Chinatown from receiving equal protections against displacement and out-of-character luxury developments, compared to the white and wealthier East Village. Since then, residents of dozens of buildings in the Lower East Side and Chinatown have been evicted by city agencies and many long-time low-income residents have been displaced.

At the press conference, which was held at NMASS' Lower East Side Workers Center on Hester Street, representatives of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side announced that they are developing a rezoning plan that will include all members of the Chinatown and Lower East Side community. The Coalition represents low-income Chinese, Latino, and African American working families who live and work in the area, as well as small businesses. Representatives from the community presented guidelines and boundaries for this planning initiative. Some proposals developed in conjunction with the the Hunter College Department of Community Planning & Development included introducting commerical rent stabilization to stem the loss of small, ethnic businesses; creating a law that would allow tenants to withhold rent in the face of harrassment or intimidation by landlords; allowing NYCHA to develop its unused property into additional low-income housing; and changing the standard for low-income housing so that it is based on the local area median income rather than the, much higher, median income for all of the New York City area, which is the current yardstick. The Coalition also announced the principles that should guide a new rezoning plan for the community, including, among other things, protection of the homes, workplaces and businesses of current residents, as opposed to being "a plan driven by tourism and for the benefit of developers"; treatment of Chinatown and the Lower East Side as one community with common interests and equal protections for all; the preservation and expansion of all types of low-income housing; and limitations on "luxury high-rise development."