Soho and Marisa Lago (iStock, Dept. of City Planning)
The proposal to rezone Soho and Noho is moving forward, despite a lawsuit claiming the plan cannot proceed if the city doesn’t host in-person hearings.
The City Planning Commission on Monday certified the application to rezone the neighborhoods, officially kickstarting the public land use review process. The timing of the certification means the rezoning could make it through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure before the end of the de Blasio administration, as long as it doesn’t face further delays.
The proposal would apply to 56 blocks in the neighborhood, eliminating restrictions that permit only light manufacturing use on ground floors. It could also pave the way for more than 3,500 residential units, of which as many as 1,118 could be set aside as affordable. (The city has identified only 26 sites that are likely to be developed in the next 10 years, which would yield an estimated 1,829 units, of which 382 to 573 wou
Soho groups file lawsuit to block rezoning
05/03/2021 10:00 AM EDT
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Quick Fix The City Planning Commission is slated to move
the proposed SoHo rezoning into the formal land use review process during a meeting today, as the de Blasio administration fights a new lawsuit from community groups seeking to block the plan.
Judge declines to issue temporary restraining order in SoHo rezoning case
Bloomberg
Opponents of the SoHo rezoning have lost their bid to place a temporary restraining order on the process in their legal battle against it.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who previously ruled in favor of the City Council in its fight against four major towers planned for Lower Manhattan, declined to issue the order for the SoHo rezoning process in the lawsuit the SoHo Alliance and Broadway Residents Coalition had filed against the city on Friday. This should allow the rezoning process to proceed even as the lawsuit makes its way through the court system.
The complaint filed on behalf of the SoHo Alliance and Broadway Residents Coalition was returned for correction, the state Supreme Court in Manhattan said.
The SoHo/NoHo rezoning would encompass the area bound by Lafayette Street and the Bowery to the east, Sixth Avenue and West Broadway to the west, Canal Street to the south and Houston Street and Astor Place to the north. It would bring as many as 3,200 new housing units to the neighborhood, including 800 affordable units, and give cultural organizations and local businesses more flexibility, the de Blasio administration said.
The mayor s renewed push to move forward with the rezoning quickly attracted support from the real estate industry and community resistance. Village Preservation, a local neighborhood preservation group, recently came out with a report arguing that the rezoning would make the area more expensive, whiter and richer, but the city and multiple real estate experts criticized the report as misleading.