BY DONATHAN SALKALN | The population of New York City is climbing toward 9 million residents. The tourism stats for 2018, 65.2 million, marked its ninth year of consecutive growth. Luxury apartment buildings, office towers, tech companies, and college campuses are clogging our skylines and jamming our neighborhoods like never before.

Like a speeding cargo train whose overpacked cars burst at the seams in mid-route, the city is feeling the strain all along the sturdy tracks that used to be its backbone—public schools, affordable housing, social services, and mom-and-pop shops that served their neighborhoods for decades.

Made up of local volunteers and the district’s city councilmember, community boards are one of the last, best ways residents can stand in front of the steamroller and find the power to push back.

But, unlike town boards outside NYC’s borders who have power to shape the future of their community by voting “yes” or “no” to problems and proposals, NYC’s community boards exist only as a sounding board for residents, and a source of recommendations to the NYC Council and the mayor.

For the 100,000 residents of Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen Manhattan Community Board 4 (CB4), it’s even more complicated. Its district’s most recent City Councilmembers, Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson, are, respectively, past and present Speakers of the Council, and have wielded enormous power by introducing new ideas in their district, then taking those ideas to the rest of the city. For instance, most of the earliest foundations laid for housing of 80 percent market-rate units and 20 percent affordable units can be found within the boundaries of CB4, an area that stretches from 14th Street to 59th Street, and from Sixth Ave. (up to 26th St.), and Eighth Ave. (up to 59th St.), west to the Hudson River Park (state land).

“What makes this community so great is how varied it is, and we don’t want to lose that character,” said Lowell Kern, the new Chair of CB4. “Where else would you find the high-end housing, like those west of 10th Avenue, directly across the street from NYCHA? And Corey [Johnson] has been very careful with homeless shelters, and everything else, to make sure that we are carrying our fair share.”

This reporter recently sat down with Kern at Chelsea’s Rail Line Diner, to discuss the CB4’s challenges. While I found the hash browns, ordered well-done, exceptional, Lowell served me up an entire entree of the meat and hot potatoes facing the Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen communities.

A contract lawyer by day, Lowell is a no-nonsense, roll-up-the-sleeves-and-lets-get-this-done type of guy, and he’s excited about his new role in leading CB4. He already has experience working with some of the most-likely volatile of residents—parents: He’s served as PTA president of Chelsea’s PS11, and is a past board member of the Greenwich Village Little League (his sons have since moved on to college).

“Community Board 4 is the best community board in the city!”  Lowell boasted. “Being a good executive, you can’t do everything yourself, and there are people on the board who are experts in their areas. Someone like Joe Restuccia, who’s been on the board since 1982 and has maybe forgotten more about Housing and Zoning then I’ll ever know. J.D. Noland, Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen’s Land Use Chair, and Lee Compton and Betty Mackintosh, Chelsea’s Land Use co-chairs, know so much, you are a fool not to rely on them. I was a chair of Waterfront, Parks & Environment [committee]. It’s now co-chaired by Jeffrey LeFrancois and Maartin de Katd, and Maartin is an environmental genius. Our Arts, Culture and Street Life [committee], with co-chairs Allen Oster and Inga Ivchenko, have done a fabulous job in making sure the schools have what they need. Transportation Planning, with Dale Corvino and Christine Berthet as co-chairs, are sorting out the Port Authority redesign. Co-chairs Joe and Maria Ortiz of Housing, Health, & Human Services, are working hard on the challenges facing the residents of New York City Housing Authority’s Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott Houses.”

The biggest priority of CB4, said Kern, between bites of a cheese and onion omelet, “is affordable housing. Always has been. Couple that with social services for the homeless and housing for seniors so people can afford to live in this area. With all the development it’s become harder and harder to be affordable. Even with the Hudson Yard buildings with 20 percent affordable units, that’s just a drop in the bucket for what we need.”

Of the 59 NYC community boards, the Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen’s district ranks third in housing for the homeless and supportive housing. It also ranks in the top three, for total amount of affordable housing built. Over 90 percent of the affordable housing has been dedicated to people earning 40 to 60 percent of the district’s Area Median Income (AMI). As the ultimate caretakers of the district, the board feels it is long overdue to build housing for those earning over 60 percent of AMI.

Over the course of our conversation, the following emerged as the hottest community issues facing CB4:

Demolition at Fulton Housing Campus

A plan by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to raise needed money by razing some buildings in the Fulton Housing campus and replacing them with 70% market rate and 30% affordable towers has been met with community pushback. So has privatizing Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott Housing to RAD.

“Just coming in and tearing down their buildings and rebuilding? People live there. That’s their home,” Lowell said. “There’s a working group made up by NYCHA officials, local NYCHA residents, elected officials, the mayor, and community board members that, together, are exploring solutions to raise the needed money, while avoiding demolition. We’ve got Joe, Maria, and Elzora Cleveland on the working committee addressing resident, NYCHA, and financial concerns.”

Change of Hell’s Kitchen’s Proposed Affordable Housing to Supportive Housing

“The Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen Land use committee is having a big issue. There are two sites, one owned by the MTA and one owned by the DEP. As part of the trade-off for Hudson Yards, we were promised those sites were going to be true middle-class affordable housing,” Lowell recalled. “We want to make sure the district is affordable for everyone. The city [the mayor, Speaker Corey Johnson’s office] has now come back and said they want to change that to supportive housing. The city did this without consulting with us. They want to put in a lot of units for HIV-positive seniors, which is definitely in need, but the community was promised something else for those buildings.”

Lowell explained CB4 has proposed an alternative site for supportive housing. “There’s a site just north of Javits Convention Center,” he noted. “It used to be a slaughterhouse. That site already has some supportive housing going in. If you want additional supportive housing, let’s do it there, and let us keep the middle-class housing that we were promised. It’s an ongoing challenge right now. Corey’s the Speaker and he’s very powerful. But the local residents and the community board feel like certain commitments were made to us.”

What Will Happen to the Former Bayview Correctional Facility?

The NoVo Foundation, which announced to great fanfare its commitment to transform the former women’s prison into a nonprofit facility for women’s issues, withdrew from the project, and the future of the nine-story building is up in the air. “Chelsea’s Land Use committee has been meeting with State Department of Economic Development, [Manhattan Borough President] Gail Brewer’s office, and Corey Johnson’s office, trying to figure out what to put in there. There is a basketball court and swimming pool, and we’re talking about turning those into community amenities. If there’s housing to go in, it would be affordable housing, not market-rate housing. That’s what we’re pushing, and we’ve gotten good feedback from the local electeds. Also, we’d want to maintain a prison cell or something to commemorate the history of that building, that it was a women’s prison.

Moving the Tow Pound from Pier 76:

Governor Andrew Cuomo recently vetoed a controversial plan of an 88-foot office building on Pier 40 (at W. Houston St.), which would have brought much-needed funds to the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT). He instead introduced legislation that will try to pry the NYPD’s tow pound from the Pier 76 (W. 36th St. and Hudson River) by the end of this year. Replacing the tow pound with some commercial space would provide HRPT much-needed income. According to reports, Governor Cuomo’s action is backed by Speaker Johnson, and opposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio. As for what will replace the tow pound, which measures the size of five football fields? Said Lowell, “There are a lot of ideas floating around. Maybe an aquarium, maybe an amusement park, maybe ball fields, maybe a sculpture garden.”

Google and Pier 57

Google, which owns the former Port Authority Building, has purchased the Chelsea Market, and will soon occupy a sizeable portion of the Pier 57 (W. 17th S.t & Hudson River). In all, the tech campus will secure 7,000 good paying jobs to the area—and, unlike most tech companies which demand discounts, Google pays millions and millions in real estate taxes, with nary a tweet of complaint. “Google has been a very good neighbor, and it’s no question that they’re taking a lot of office space there, but we’re getting a lot back to the community there too,” said Lowell. “Besides the park on the roof, we’re getting theater space for rehearsals and whatnot, we’re getting an environmental lab, we’re getting a tech lab, and were getting public open space facing south. And Google has been a big part of that.”

Lowell added that City Winery is scheduled to open on Pier 57 in April. It will include a 350 -concert hall, two performance venues, a 10- seat restaurant, a wine testing room, and a wine production facility.

Western Portion of Hudson Yards to Get an Elementary School

A residential housing development, which includes a school, is planned to be built over the western portion of the rail yards, west of 11th Ave.—but first, a platform needs to be built over the rails. “The developer ran into a problem, that Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak need certain access to be able to get down to the tracks,” Lowell said, adding that CB4 will work with the developer, various government agencies, and local electeds, to move the project forward. “We want that housing built—and more importantly, we want that elementary school built. PS11 and PS33, in Chelsea, are both over capacity,” Lowell said.

Parks

Members of CB4’s Waterfront, Parks & Environment committee have been busy as bees, coordinating many park projects with resident needs with the NYC Parks Department and HRPT. The recent gem of new parks is Chelsea Green (W. 20th St. btw. 6th & 7th Aves.). It opened this past July.

In September, Clement Clarke Moore Park (W. 22nd St. & 10th Ave.) reopened, after $1.5 million in upgrades. “We saved the seals,” Lowell said, happy that the park’s beloved water-squirts survived the renovation.

Mathews-Palmer Playground (W. 45th St. btw 9th Ave. & 10th Ave) recently went through a $2.5 million renovation that included the addition of a silver caboose.

The Chelsea Waterside Park is in line for major improvements. Said Lowell, “We’re going to expand the dog run, put in a permanent picnic area, and we’re going to get a comfort station.” Lowell added that across the highway, “They’re working on the floating dock that connects the park to the barge of the Frying Pan. The piles that it was sitting on were decaying so they’re shoring that up.”

The basketball court and exercise areas of Chelsea Park (W. 27th St. & 10th Ave.) are going through final planning for renovation.

Plans for the $38 million project at Pier 97 (W. 57th St & Hudson River) will transform a concrete pier into a wonderland of sports, recreation, and relaxation. “The preliminary plans for the park have been approved by the community board and 97 is underway,” said Lowell. 

Hell’s Kitchen Park (W. 47th St. & 10th Ave.) has an immediate need. Said Lowell, “There was a tree that had to be pulled out from the middle of the toddler’s play area and now there’s no shade there. We’ve been working with parks, so come spring they’re going to put up a structure to create shade, so the kids don’t melt during the summer.”

As a longtime resident within its area of coverage I’ve always been in awe of the tireless dedication CB4 board members bring to protect and improve all of its unique neighborhoods. I wish the best for Kern, and his colleagues.

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