The City Must Preserve the Village While Creating Affordable Housing

Andrew Berman, executive director, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

NEW YORK CITY—Mayor Bill de Blasio has long claimed that creating and preserving affordable housing is his number one priority. But in Greenwich Village and the East Village, we have been consistently frustrated by his opposition to rezoning plans that would help create and preserve affordable housing where little exists, and his fierce defense of existing zoning which only results in construction of high-rise luxury condos, hotels, and boutique office buildings, in many cases by his campaign fundraisers.

Starting in early 2015, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation asked the mayor to rezone the University Place and Broadway corridors in our neighborhood. A flood of luxury condos, hotels and office buildings are being built in the area, and under the existing zoning, only more of the same will result.