East Midtown rezoning “really long overdue,” Scissura says
It was April 2012. The first “Avengers” movie came out, in which the area around Grand Central Terminal got totally destroyed. That same month – in real life – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed some dramatic changes to the same area. He wanted to rezone Midtown East in order to improve the office buildings in the neighborhood and keep attracting top tenants. That plan was at first voted down and then revived, and now, more than five years later, the Midtown East rezoning is set to be approved by the City Council Land Use Committee on Thursday afternoon.
The New York Building Congress is one of the biggest proponents of that project. Its President and CEO Carlo Scissura joined the City & State Presents podcast on Wednesday, and said that he’s glad the rezoning is finally getting done.
“I’m happy that the council and all the stakeholders… (are) finally saying we’ve got to get something done,” Scissura said. “It is a shame, when you look at that area and you realize what’s happening across the city (with new construction). … It’s really long overdue that East Midtown gets its due.”
Scissura also talked about how to avoid gentrification with rezonings in other neighborhoods, like East New York or Staten Island’s North Shore, and explained why he’s asking the government for new taxes.
This was the second in a series of three podcasts with Scissura and the Building Congress. You can listen to the first one, about transportation infrastructure, here.
You can subscribe and listen to the rezoning podcast below.
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