Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
58
working class community of color with an affluent white community’ (quoted in Chaban
2008).
DCP director Amanda Burden played down the notion of widespread displacement,
stating that ‘over 90 percent’ of the housing in the area was ‘rent protected’, including the
neighbourhood’s several large public housing complexes (quoted in Williams 2008b).
However, the effectiveness of rent protection programs in the long run is questionable, as the
heated housing market encourages landlords to opt out of subsidy programs and speed up the
process of conversion of rent-protected units into market-rate apartments.
Impact on Independent Local Businesses
Local mom-and-pop stores owners expressed concern that the rezoning would force them to
close, or to relocate out of the neighbourhood due to heightened competition from large
national retailers or escalating rental prices.
In 2008, CB 11 (East Harlem) made several recommendations aimed at preserving
small businesses in the neighbourhood. The board suggested the introduction of provisions
that would require developers to reserve a space to host existing local businesses in their
developments, and recommended measures to promote local hiring through bonuses in
exchange for the commitment of new establishments to hire locals. Acknowledging the area’s
high rates of unemployment and underemployment, in 2007 the Municipal Art Society (MAS)
recommended the introduction of job training programs for Harlem residents to ensure that
locals may benefit directly from the new jobs created through the rezoning, and included
other recommendations to preserve locally-owned retail in the strip.
In 2008, Central Harlem's CB 10 calculated that at least 71 small businesses would be
directly forced to close as a result of the rezoning, leaving 975 workers without jobs. The
Final Environmental Impact Statement issued in 2008 however considered these businesses of
little economic and cultural value, as they did not ‘contribute substantially to neighborhood
character’ (DCP 2008a: 1.0-13 and 1.0-11). The plan did not include provisions to protect
small merchants other than the establishment of a 750 thousand dollars loan program for
businesses that were adversely affected by the rezoning (10 thousand dollars per storeowner
to help them relocate).
3
Other programs were launched in 2009 to lure new businesses to the
area; in 2009, the UMEZ’s ‘125
th
Street Pilot Retail Incentive Program’ was launched to grant
loans to established, non-franchise businesses seeking to expand along 125
th
Street, in order to
offset the homologation of businesses along the corridor. The 1 million dollars ‘Harlem
Business Assistance Fund’ was launched the same year to offset part of the expenses small
businesses may incur in locating to 125
th
Street and its vicinity, reimbursing broker
commissions paid in connection with new leases.
Despite these efforts, innumerable locally-owned businesses have left their locations
along 125
th
Street since 2007
.
According to the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce,
3
Meanwhile, a staggering 5.8 million dollars were allocated for the beautification of Marcus Garvey
Park, an initiative that no community group had ever requested or supported, but which was most
probably intended to benefit the developers of several new luxury residential condominium buildings
facing the park.
