Don’t be that guy at the end of the bar muttering the word “gentrification” over and over again — do something about the anxiety-inducing state of housing and development (or at least learn more about how to do something) at these upcoming community forums.
Save Our Community Center Town Hall
Nov. 17, 6:30pm at Casa Victoria, 308 East 8th St., East Village
The future of the former CHARAS El Bohio community center — a former public school building that has sat ominously vacant on East Ninth Street for over a decade — has long been a point of contention (to put it mildly) in the East Village. Back in September, Council Member Rosie Mendez and some 200 residents gathered to celebrate a road bump in developer Gregg Singer’s plan to convert the building into dormitories. Now the councilwoman, who reps the East Village and Lower East Side, will lead a discussion about the building’s current status and the ongoing effort to turn it back into a proper cultural hub and community center. She’ll be joined by members of the East Village Community Coalition, La Plaza Cultural, Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, GVSHP, and the Cooper Square Community.
Tenants’ Rights Forum
Dec. 2 at 6:30pm at PS 142, 100 Attorney St., Lower East Side
Senator Daniel Squadron, who reps the Lower East Side, will host a panel of tenant advocacy organizations to discuss landlord/tenant issues as well as rent-control laws, which are set to expire in June 2015 (advocates of the laws are trying to renew them in strengthened form so it won’t be so easy for landlords to deregulate apartments; the real estate industry is, of course, trying to weaken them). The forum will end with a resource fair that will allow attendees to lob questions at reps from the Department of Housing Preservation & Development, Department of Buildings, Attonery General’s office, Department of Homeless Services, Tenant Protection Unit, GOLES, Cooper Square Committee, and more.