Rezoning Harlem

A City Council committee is scheduled to meet today on a proposal to impose new rules on development in the 125th street corridor in Harlem, and a heated exchange is expected. A meeting over the weekend of the "Coalition to Save Harlem," which opposes the rezoning, featured speakers likening the Bloomberg administration's plan to the Holocaust and spouting slurs directed at Jews and Asian-Americans, the Columbia Spectator reported yesterday. Other opponents of the city's plans have directed personal attacks at the planning commissioner. The opposition to the rezoning that is not rooted in racial, religious, or personal animus is focused on what opponents say is the risk that the rezoning plan will result in a dearth of "affordable housing," and that the buildings it would encourage, soaring up to 290 feet, are too high. Community Board 10 complains that the city's plan "provides too much incentive for luxury housing development." The community board wants to slash the maximum height allowed to 160 feet, while redefining "affordable" housing to exclude families earning more than $35,000 a year.

There was a time not too long ago when Harlem's problem was that it was full of burnt-out crack houses, not that it might become a magnet for luxury housing development. To allow hatred or irrational fear to stand in the way of economic growth and the creation of more housing, jobs, and tax revenue along with it, at this juncture, would be counterproductive, and risk sending Harlem spiraling backward. Our own view is that, if anything, the city's plan goes too far in the direction of requiring "affordable housing," that is, housing reserved for a few who win a government-sponsored housing lottery and meet the requirements to qualify for non-market-rate housing that is set aside for those who meet particular income requirements. And that, if anything, the city's proposed cap on building heights is too low. The 290-foot cap would limit Harlem's tallest building to a stature less than a third of that of the Empire State Building. It points to one of the problems with zoning itself, that the use of property is determined by politicians rather than by the property's owners. But if there is to be zoning, let it be zoning that encourages growth and development throughout the city, rather than artificially preserving some areas as pockets of poverty.