As the haters of a proposal to rezone Harlem’s Lenox Terrace gear up to rally against it Tuesday on the steps of City Hall, the famed complex’s owner is unleashing a surprise counterattack.
Some Lenox Terrace residents and activists are furiously trying to block the Olnick Organization’s plan to build five new rental apartment towers at the central Harlem site, which would add 1,600 units, including 400 “affordable” ones — fearing they would further gentrify the fast-changing neighborhood and drive out longtime residents.
Privately held Olnick, led by president Seth Schochet, needs the zoning change to add so much density to the four-block site.
The plan exploits Mayor de Blasio’s strategy to promote rezoning as a way to let developers build larger projects in exchange for including affordable apartments.
But Olnick says that without the zoning change, it will build a scaled-down version of the Lenox Terrace enlargement — with no affordable apartments and with none of the public amenities that the rezoned plan would include.
A rendering of Olnick’s Plan B is shown here for the first time. It would have four new buildings rather than five and they’d stand only 200 feet tall compared to 284 feet in the more ambitious scenario. Either plan would need seven years of construction.
Olnick owns most of the land on the “superblock” bounded by Fifth and Lenox (Malcom X) avenues and between West 132nd and 135th streets. Its six existing towers have 1,700 apartments, of which 80 percent are rent-stabilized.
Recent changes in state rent laws make it extremely difficult to raise rents in stabilized apartments and near-impossible to completely deregulate stabilized units.
If the rezoning passes muster with the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, Olnick would provide $25 million in benefits to the complex, including 160,000 square feet of modern retail space. Open areas would be enhanced with new landscaping and be enlarged by replacing parking lots with an underground garage. It would also include a new facility for local urban farm Harlem Grown.
Plan B includes no such features. Olnick says it could build four new towers “as-of-right,” meaning without a zoning change. A City Hall source confirmed that the backup plan required no public approvals.
Olnick’s original, larger proposal was approved by the City Planning Commission last week but must next be approved by the City Council. Council member Bill Perkins, whose vote is decisive because it’s in his district, strongly opposes rezoning on the grounds that an influx of market-rate tenants to the complex will harm the Harlem community.
When Olnick first developed Lenox Terrace in 1958, it was hailed as “Harlem’s Best Address” in the New York Times. Its 17-story brick buildings with spacious modern apartments and terraces attracted middle- and upper-middle-class tenants. It was something new in the historic neighborhood, which was dominated by mostly low-rise structures.
Past residents included Harlem luminaries such as baritone McHenry Boatwright, actor Lincoln Kilpatrick and powerful pol Percy Sutton. Those who call it home today include former Congressman Charles Rangel, NAACP New York State President Hazel Dukes, and former Gov. David Paterson — who’s on record as opposing Olnick’s rezoning plan.