David once again defeats Goliath! Community members of Chinatown, Lower East Side, SoHo and other downtown areas gathered last Tuesday 9/24 with Council Member Christopher Marte to celebrate our victory against a developer’s latest attempt to build luxury high rises on the Two Bridges waterfront.
A month ago, Chetrit, the developer and owner of 265-275 Cherry Street, announced that they were in the final stages of bringing on a development partner to help finance their megatowers project, and planned to break ground within a few weeks. Our community, with Council Member Marte’s leadership, swiftly condemned Chetrit’s greed in pushing this project and their disregard for people’s lives. Three weeks later, the tide has quickly turned in the community’s favor: Chetrit, abandoned by their development partner, is backing out of the project and has defaulted on their loan. The lot now heads to the auction block.
Chetrit’s surrender is the latest victory in our community’s years-long fight against the megatowers. By organizing with Two Bridges residents, neighbors from the Lower East Side and Chinatown, as well as workers, students and small businesses who are a part of these communities, we have proven that a unified community can triumph over the greed of billionaire developers.
These two towers, each 60- to 80-story tall, were planned to be built right next to two existing buildings that provide affordable housing. If built, they would damage the structure of the buildings, threaten the health and safety of their residents and drive up real estate taxes and rents in the surrounding area. In 2017, with the support of former Council Member Margaret Chin, developers proposed to build these luxury megatowers. Chin sent a letter to residents saying they “could not stop the towers from going up” and at best they could ask for some crumbs from the developers. Since then, multiple developers have taken over the project only to abandon it, due to consistent community organizing against displacement.
Mr. Chen, a longtime Two Bridges resident, said: “These developers don’t care about the people, they only care about money. But because our community is very united, and because we have a very good City Council Member, Chris Marte, who stands with the tenants and stands with the community, we are able to fight back!”
Council Member Chris Marte said: “Today is a testament to the will of the people. It’s a major win for our neighborhood, for our city. When people on the street say this is just the way it is, there’s nothing we can do, you’re going to say: however, in Two Bridges, we took on developers & won!”
In celebrating this victory, community members call on the City to pass the Chinatown Working Group Rezoning Plan, which would stop luxury high-rises and limit real estate speculation in Chinatown and the Lower East Side by capping the height of new developments and mandating truly affordable housing.
Our community sends a clear message to any big developers threatening to take over our neighborhoods: do not build luxury towers that destroy people’s lives, or else you will encounter our united opposition and lose.
