Image credit: DCP
The proposal would create new affordable housing, public parks, and other community improvements. On August 21, 2017, the City Planning Commission began the public review process for the Department of City Planning’s proposal to rezone several neighborhoods that flank the elevated train line along Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. The Jerome Avenue Neighborhood Plan seeks to rezone several neighborhoods, including Highbridge, Concourse, Mt. Eden, Mt. Hope, University Heights and Fordham, along an approximately two-mile long stretch primarily along Jerome Avenue and represented by Bronx Community Boards 4, 5 and 7.
The subject area spans Jerome Avenue from Mullaly Park north across the Cross Bronx Expressway to just south of Fordham Road. The area is currently developed primarily with low-scale commercial, industrial, and auto-related uses, with some existing housing stock. More than 80 percent of the housing stock was constructed prior to 1950 and is comprised mostly of six to eight story apartment buildings.
The Plan seeks to spur the creation of as many as 3,250 affordable homes within the subject 92-block area. Parts of the Jerome Avenue corridor would be rezoned from commercial to residential, which is currently not permitted in much of the corridor. City Planning expects 20 to 30 percent of the new units created to be permanently affordable through the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law. The City further anticipates that many of the new affordable projects will require subsidies from the City, which typically locks projects into 100 percent affordable units for a number of decades.
Image credit: DCP
“With new and preserved affordable housing, economic development opportunities and significant capital investments — including in parks and more walkable streets — the Jerome Avenue Neighborhood Plan protects and revitalizes existing Bronx neighborhoods, including the tenants of rent-regulated housing, while recognizing the needs of many of the auto-shops that have thrived here for decades,” City Planning Commission Chair Marisa Lago said. “The plan paves the way for a dynamic future for residents and workers for generations to come.”
“Housing New York is about more than creating and preserving affordable housing, it is about investing in the future of neighborhoods. Through a comprehensive planning process that puts community priorities front and center, the City is looking to bring new opportunities for jobs, affordable housing, retail and community services to the Jerome Avenue area,” said HPD Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer. “I want to thank our partners at DCP and across city government, as well as Council Members Cabrera and Gibson and our many elected leaders for working with us to ensure a vibrant Jerome Avenue anchored by affordability and opportunity that will serve generations to come.”
The community boards now have until mid-October 2017 to review and comment on the Community Plan before it goes to Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.
By: Jonathon Sizemore (Jonathon is the CityLaw Fellow and a New York Law School Graduate, Class of 2016).