Op-Ed: Rezoning Would Mean a New Waterfront for a Manhattan Neighborhood

Obed Fulcar writes an opinion piece in support of a rezoning process for the Inwood neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan. Fulcar leads the community group Friends of Sherman Creek, which, in Fulcar's words, has been working for years to support a plan "to transform Inwood’s long-inaccessible eastern waterfront into a publicly accessible greenway for the entire neighborhood to enjoy."

According to Fulcar, later this week the New York City Council's Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will consider the de Blasio administration's rezoning plan for Inwood.

"There’s much at stake in this proposal, which was crafted over the past three years with the participation of dozens of community groups like ours and other local stakeholders," writes Fulcar. "It includes the creation of hundreds of units of affordable housing, preservation of rent-regulated housing stock, and well-crafted plans to keep many existing businesses in place."

That's not the part Fulcar, as a self-proclaimed park advocate, is most excited about. "[W]hat I find most exciting is its potential to transform the Sherman Creek area and the Harlem River waterfront into a beautiful “Malecón”—Spanish for an edge-water public space—and, at long last, the Sherman Creek Master Plan coming to fruition, with the opportunity to make it easy for the community to reach that long-neglected stretch of the waterfront," writes Fulcar.

Without naming anyone specifically, Fulcar notes opposition to the rezoning, and issues a strong endorsement of the plan.