Residents and community organizations gathered near the Manhattan Bridge on Sept. 24, after news broke that a pair of luxury high rises planned to be built along the East River had stalled. So, the fight against developments, and the rising rents that often follow their construction, continues. 

The crowd outside District 1 Council Member Christopher Marte’s office came to celebrate a stalled project of two proposed residential towers that would add an additional 1,300 housing units to the Lower East Side. Local residents are concerned that the development would provide little to no affordable housing.

The real estate developer Chetrit Group recently defaulted on a loan for the project along 265-275 Cherry St. Opponents like Marte and a coalition of local residents and organizations believe the default is a step in the right direction for protecting their neighborhoods’ affordability. 

A spokesperson for the Chetrit Group said that the “technical default” by developers has since been resolved and has no bearing over the project moving forward. The towers are planned to be built directly across from the Rutgers and LaGuardia New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments along Cherry st. 

Many rally attendees are residents of the area.

“If those buildings come here it will increase my rent and also affect small businesses,” said Carlos Herrera, a restaurant worker and a Lower East Side resident.

“They want to bring their own big businesses, like big supermarkets, like big corporate businesses, and we don’t want that.” 

‘A Giveaway to Developers’

Marte has a history of facing off with developers. He’s advocating for a community based plan called the “Chinatown Working Group Plan” aimed at ensuring affordable housing on local residents’ terms, which he believes are not a part of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, a zoning plan proposed by the Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.

The City of Yes zoning plan aims to upgrade the city’s zoning regulations to provide more housing across New York. The plan is to create more affordable housing in lower-density neighborhoods and incentivize real estate developers to incorporate more affordable housing into their projects. 

Marte and local organizations like The Chinese Working Group (CWG), The Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side, and Youth Against Displacement (YAD) believe the plan doesn’t go far enough. 

“The City of Yes is mostly just a giveaway to developers. It mostly just allows more height and more bulk,” said Briar Winters, a spokesperson for CWG. “It has no binding affordability, so most developers aren’t going to do it.”

Winters believes that without a community inclusive zoning plan, local residents will continue to play “whack-a-mole” with developers like the Chetrit Group.

While the City of Yes plan incentivizes developers to build affordable housing it does not require it meet a certain threshold of affordable units. 

The Chinatown Working Plan is a community-based proposal that aims to require affordable housing units be determined by local wages, all property built on NYCHA land be affordable to low-income residents and institute height limits to prevent displacement in areas of the Lower East Side and Chinatown left out of the East Village Rezoning Plan.

“The basis of the Chinatown Working Group Plan is a responsible development plan that centers around affordability and preserving the community that lives here now,” said Marte.

Marte said his attempts at having the Department of City Planning incorporate the Chinese Working Group Plan into zoning laws have been unsuccessful. “I think with enough pressure they can move forward with it.” said Marte. 

“We’ve talked in good faith about this plan, but their priority is the City of Yes, so they’re saying we don’t have time for the other community plans,” said Marte. 

Economic and Environmental Concerns

Joe Marvilli, the deputy press secretary for the Department of City Planning said the city-wide City of Yes initiative “has no connections to the Chinatown Working Group’s proposal.”

Besides height limits and requiring affordable housing, the plan wants to do away with a criticized metric that uses average federal income rather than local wages to determine rent prices. Lowering rent prices relative to the cost of living and local wages in the area will prevent longtime residents from having to leave the area to make way for more wealthy tenants. 

As first reported by THE CITY, Annemarie Gray, executive director of Open New York, said, “Opponents of City of Yes are parroting Trump’s talking points, equating more affordable and accessible neighborhoods with ‘community destruction.’“

But despite being in one of New York City’s highest-density, lowest-income neighborhoods with some of the most NYCHA housing units in Manhattan, some protesters may get associated with the richer, lower-density, not in my backyard or “NIMBY” sentiments in boroughs beyond Manhattan.

York Chen, is a retired journalist and has been living on 273 Cherry St. for more than 20 years.

Chen expressed concern over the mega-tower projects damaging already existing buildings and raising costs. 

“If more towers are built and all these rich people come into our community, everything will become more and more expensive,” said Chen. 

In addition to rising costs, Chen expressed concerns over residents’ access to clean air. 

“That area already has a very limited open space. So now the proposed towers will be built on the parking lot. When they build a tower that will completely block the wind from the south, and the air will be very bad,” Chen said.

Twenty-eight of the city’s 59 community districts have “unfavorable” opinions on “City of Yes”” proposal. Community district three, home to the Lower East Side and Chinatown are classified as “conditionally favorable” towards the plan.

The City Council will vote on the City of Yes plan before the end of the year.