Drunk NYU students are ruining the East Village. At least, that’s what a lot of residents and business owners said last night while discussing a zoning plan aimed at preserving the character of the neighborhood.
The purpose of the forum was for the public to share their concerns about the decline in retail diversity while members of Community Board 3 quietly listened and sometimes struggled to get the 40 speakers to stick to their allotted two minutes.
According to the board, there’s been an ongoing dramatic loss in retail diversity in the neighborhood along with the decline of small businesses, which is why they’ve started to consider a special district. Something similar is also happening over on Bleecker Street.
The idea is to limit the amount of certain business types in a given area to encourage a variety of mom-and-pop shops. For example, only 25 percent of any block would have bars or restaurants. Another proposal is to limit the number of chain stores or banks, like Duane Reade or Chase, to one per block.
The board is informally proposing enacting a special district from 14th Street to Houston and from 2nd Avenue to Avenue D, which some said doesn’t expand far enough and should include Bowery and FDR Drive.
The board hasn’t taken an official stance yet and they haven’t drafted any detailed proposals because they wanted to hear from the public first.
“We are not here tonight to present a plan to you,” said Jamie Rogers, chair of the community board. “We will not move forward without your input on anything or the plan.”
A resonating concern that was always met with nodding heads and applause was getting nightlife, Walgreens, NYU and students out of the neighborhood.
“We just want to keep the neighborhood as everyone’s been saying,” said Abby Ehmann, who last year told us she opened Lucky bar partly to fight the increasing “douche factor” of the East Village. “Diverse and entertaining. And good for all of us who live here. And not for the kids to live in those NYU dorms and just dump all their crap when they go off to wherever they go off to in the summer. They don’t contribute to the neighborhood.”
(Abby Ehmann, owner of Lucky Bar, Photo courtesy of Shannon Barbour)
Some, like Anthony Vargas, questioned if that was really the problem and wondered how this proposal would affect small business owners who want to open bars or restaurants.
Jorge Vasquez, a city council candidate, supports the idea of the district, but also suggested limiting chain stores that pop up for a season, like Halloween stores and tax preparation services. He went on to say, “Once these small businesses go, then your community changes because that’s where we work at. That’s who supports our baseball teams. That’s who supports our schools.”
Almost all of the speakers were small business owners, nearly all of whom echoed each other’s sentiments. However, there were a few who opposed the idea of a special district. Sam Levy, a representative of the Real Estate Board of New York, said a special district isn’t an effective way to protect small business owners. Another man said owners should do more to effectively compete with online companies like Amazon and Fresh Direct. They were all met with hisses and boos by the crowd.
A statement by the owner of Theatre 80 St. Marks, Lorcan Otway, resonated throughout the forum. “New York is not dying. It’s being murdered,” he said.
The community board said they will take everyone’s comments into consideration and will discuss further steps and proposal details during their next meeting.
http://www.gvshp.org/supportsmallbiz
Testimony to Community Board #3 Economic Development Committee
Public Forum on Creating an East Village Special Zoning District
to Protect Small Businesses and Discourage Chain Stores
June 7, 2017
Good evening committee members and neighbors, and thank you for the opportunity to testify. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is the largest membership organization in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. GVSHP supports the effort to explore and implement zoning and other incentives for promoting retail diversity and preserving neighborhood character. We know there are a multitude of strategies put forward by shop owners and advocates which we are thrilled you are considering.
Formula retail is usually thought of as big-box stores like Target, Walmart, Walgreens, and Old Navy. They have a standardized formula and they stick to it. Formula retail or big box chain stores pose a threat to retail diversity and to small independent businesses, they can often pay more for spaces and sometimes even consciously try to force small shops out of business to corner the market locally. By contrast, our small businesses not only add character and a variety of services and products to our neighborhood, but keep more revenue local.
At the time of the publication of the East Village Community Coalition’s report, Preserving Local, Independent Retail: Recommendations for Formula Retail Zoning in the East Village in 2015 , a sample of vacant spaces in the East Village ranged from 246 to 11,700 square feet, with 33 of the properties being 1,500 square feet or larger. It is important to encourage leasing to local businesses in the neighborhood before formula retail businesses begin to compete, using their small-store prototypes that could move into the available East Village real estate.
We hear and share the alarm in our neighborhood by the recent announcements of big box stores like Target expanding into the urban market, right here surrounding us to the north and to the south.
Chain stores have a history and a goal of homogeneous uniformity, especially when it comes to their signage and facades. A chain store in Kalamazoo, or Pittsburgh or Paris will look just like one here in the East Village. This is antithetical to the spirit and interests of our community.
The Center for an Urban Future’s (CUF) annual State of the Chains [2] study counts chains in New York City by store brand and zip code. Between 2015 and 2016 NYC has seen an increase in the number of chain stores from 7154 to 7243.
In comparison to many other neighborhoods the East Village has been relatively spared this trend, but we are now seeing them spread, and we want to keep and protect the small independent store character we do have. The Union Square area and 14th Street have one of the greatest concentrations of chain stores in New York City. Thus East Village residents have no lack of access to chain stores should they need or desire them. However, they also greatly desire to keep their independent businesses in their neighborhood where they offer vital local services and individual character.
We believe that measures which would limit, discourage, or outright prohibit chain or formula retail in certain areas merit consideration.
For instance, the East Village Community Coalition released an excellent report which GVSHP assisted with analyzing the spread of formula retail or chain stores in the East Village. The report offered several sound suggestions for ways to prevent the overconcentration of chains or formula retail in neighborhoods like the East Village, which benefit so much from and derive so much of their identity from their unique, independent businesses. All or some combination of these recommendations should be considered, including limiting chains to major commercial thoroughfares, requiring special permits for certain kinds of chains, regulating maximum square footage and combining of storefronts, returning to residential use grandfathered non-conforming uses when they are vacant for a period of time, or a ban on chains in certain areas entirely.
While zoning incentives are important to consider, without consideration of commercial lease renewal protections, it won’t be enough. One approach to the vexing challenge of rent gouging and refusal to renew a lease would be the Small Business Jobs Survival Act. Supported by a majority of council members, a resolution from the Board calling for a hearing and vote specifically on that bill would complement the goals of this public forum.
When landlords and real estate speculators await and anticipate the possibility of signing one of these national chain stores, vacancy rates can increase. According to a recent report by local State Senator Brad Hoylman, “in case after case, landlords push out local businesses in order to hold out for luxury retail or corporate chains capable of paying higher rents. The result is a glut of empty storefronts, chain stores, pharmacies, and high-end national brands that often lack local character and don’t provide goods and services the community needs.”
Our neighborhood is struggling to hold on to our character-defining, job-producing, entrepreneur-driven small businesses. We need zoning measures as soon as possible to protect them from unfair competition and price gouging landlords. We hope today’s hearing will bring us to serious consideration of and a vote and approval for such measures.
We look forward to working with the Community Board and our elected officials to see your recommendations regarding special district regulations and protecting and promoting local small businesses enacted and put in force.