Our group contact is El Barrio Unite, an organized group of concerned citizens of East Harlem. Our Macaulay group has now met with El Barrio Unite members on two occasions. The initial meeting served as an introduction between our group and Roger Hernandez along with two of his associates from NERVE/El Barrio Unite. This meeting took place Monday March 2nd, 2015, Abhishek and Andrew attended this initial meeting as representatives of our group. During this meeting, the N.E.R.V.E. provided us with some literature on their current concern of the East River Plaza Development project. We also made a few suggestions on how we can help them, which included the suggestion that we help them with a brochure. The second event was the community board meeting held Monday March 9, 2015 at the Casa Boricua Del Barrio. The representatives of our group who attended this were Michael, Andrew, and myself (Jasmine). The purpose of this meeting was to update and inform the attendees, who amongst us were concerned residents of East Harlem, about the controversial East River Expansion Project.
To summarize the East River Expansion Project, three residential buildings are being proposed to be built on top of the already existing East River Plaza. The towers will be about 32-47 stories and include 1000-1200 residential units. Of those new residential units, about 20% are said to be affordable housing units. Issues including health, flood zoning, displacement, and decrease in sunlight are just a few of the concerning issues the group is asking the companies leading of this new development to be held accountable for. The company Tiago Holdings, LLC under the development groups Blumenfield Development Group and Forest City Rangers are the ones heading this project. Both development groups have a history of not fulfilling its promises of benefiting the neighborhood. The plan they have presented has inconsistencies on how many affordable housing unites they will be providing and there is no real statement on how this will benefit the people of the neighborhood. As of now, it would seem that the application is still being reviewed for completion. Due to a lack of transparency, it is clear that an aggressive approach to receive, both, information and all developments in of the stages of the project.
At the meeting, Michael made a very valid comment tat the building plans look extremely out of place amongst the surrounding neighborhood. A typical building in that area isn’t more than 7 stories. In this course, we have read enough literature to be well aware of the long-term detrimental effects of a plan such as this
The next steps for our group are to negotiate our next personal meeting with El Barrio. We are still in the beginning phases of this where we are trying to work out a day and time where a majority of the members are available to attend. Ideally, there will be several dates and times that we can come up with. Those dates and times will then be presented to Roger Hernandez to arrive at a mutually convenient scheduled date. We plan to schedule this sometime prior to Spring Break (April 3-12, 2015). Moreover, the group will try to attend some of the upcoming city planning commission meetings held on Wednesdays and Thursdays. At the coming city planning meetings, El Barrio plans to request an environment and a health impact assessment, which is supposed to be provided to the public anyway. In addition they will ask the companies to declare a community benefit agreement. By being present and consistent the needs of the community are heard. Also, the city planning commission will update the organization on what stage the plan is at. It is important that a open rejection of the plans with valid concerns that can be see and measured are expressed to elected officials. March 17th at 6:00 pm is the next full community board meeting, where El Barrio is scheduled to meet. Our group plans to be present at this meeting as a show of support for N.E.R.V.E/ El Barrio Unite.
El Barrio asked if our group could help with a letter to Melissa Mark-Viverito, the Council Speaker of District 8, and other elected officials. What is wanted is a pre-made letter that can be distributed, for members of the community and other concerned citizens to sign, in-order to show elected officials that this is not what the community needs nor will it benefit those who live there. El Barrio has a goal of at least thirty signatures, but it is the shared belief, of our group and the attendees of the March 9th meeting, that more than thirty letters can be mailed to City Council members. A suggestion of distributing the letters to our class and on City College campus caused others to suggest organizations like the teachers union, because there are 5 schools in the immediate area of the proposed construction site. Of course signatures have to be voluntary, but it is our belief that people would be willing to sign if they were aware. City Council members are the ones who have to sign off on the developers project, rezoning, and land use. Additionally, the letter requests that the plan not be approved until it is shown to more of a benefit to the community. Factors such as increase the amount of affordable housing to 40% and have it permanently contracted as affordable housing. Also, community preference should be given, so that local construction business can help with the building, which would result in jobs for community members, and residents obtain preference for selection once the units are ready to house.
As a group, we are communicating well. Our primary form of communication at this point is Facebook private messenger and has shown to be effective thus far. Everyone has been well informed of up coming events. The literature given to Abhishek and Andrew by N.E.R.V.E. has been emailed to all the members of the group who could not attend the initial meeting. We definitely have a solid starting ground and vision of where we are taking this project. N.E.R.V.E. is very excited to be working with us and using our group as an asset. The group is encouraged to follow and share El Barrio Unite on Twitter and Facebook as they have been and will continue to update the page with events and the stages of development. There is great promise for the impact our group can have and the power behind community organizing. I will be adding the link for their social media websites as well as their website for any of the other class mates who are interested in their work.
