Press Conference to Stop Upzoning of Chelsea Market

Despite the cloudy skies, today GVSHP was joined by community, affordable housing, and tenant groups from the Village and Chelsea to call upon the City Council to reject the proposed Chelsea Market upzoning, which will come up for a vote next month. You can view a photoset of today’s press conference here as well as views of the last publicly-proposed additions to the historic Chelsea Market complex here.

The proposed out-of-scale additions atop Chelsea Market are prohibited by current zoning regulations for the area, so the multinational developer-owner of the complex is petitioning the City to change the rules to allow the huge new development to go through.

GVSHP and the groups represented today – which included Save Chelsea, the Chelsea Coalition on Housing, the Greenwich Village Community Task Force, the London Terrace Tenants Association, Tenants Political Action Committee, Council of Chelsea Block Associations, and the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club — feel that the additions would result in the defacement of this historic complex, which is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, and would cast deeper shadows over the High Line park.

Moreover, although the currently proposed upzoning plan includes a promise to fund an affordable housing development in Chelsea, both affordable housing advocates and neighborhood leaders called that promise a “sham” and said that it would not justify approval of the massive upzoning to allow the two large additions to be built.  An earlier Chelsea upzoning in 2005 for increased development included a promise of 27% affordable housing in return, but seven years later, much of the promised affordable housing has never materialized, including a promised development at the Fulton Houses which officials are now tying to the Chelsea Market upzoning.

Before the City Council votes on this upzoning, we urge you to contact Speaker Quinn and urge her to REJECT the proposed upzoning of Chelsea Market and the large towers to be erected atop the historic complex – you can see sample letters and get contact information here.