• Early in 2002, the NYC Department of City Planning released a plan for the development of the Far West Side which includes a partial rezoning of the Fashion District west of Eighth Avenue to allow new commercial development.

• Finally, all these plans call for a westward extension of public transportation facilities which, in and of itself, promises to spur West Side development.

The significant loss of commercial office space on September 11th has only heightened interest in the West Side. While no plan has yet been adopted, it seems obvious that development pressures will give way to activity before long.

PLANNED ZONING STUDY
In February, the FCBID Officers Committee met with Richard Barth, the Director of the Manhattan Borough Office of City Planning, to discuss the City’s plan for the Far West Side. While the Officers support this plan to spur commercial development west of Eighth Avenue, they stressed the need to allow for residential development as well. Naturally, the relevancy of the current Special Garment District Zoning and its impact on the potential for any development in this area was part of this discussion. At the conclusion, it was decided that a detailed study of the zoning is warranted.

By way of background: In 1986 the City Planning Department produced the “Garment Center Study: Program and Zoning Recommendations,” which concluded that the fashion industry, already beleaguered by decades of manufacturing job losses, would be further imperiled if manufacturing was displaced by general office uses in a strong real estate market. The report recommended the creation of a Special Garment District Preservation Area, requiring that side street buildings, between Seventh and Ninth Avenues from 35th to 40th Streets, remain at least 50% manufacturing. Hence the zoning legislation enacted in 1987 tethered district properties to the fate of the fashion industry, keeping rents artificially low and, in effect, subsidizing manufacturing jobs.

The industry’s decline, however, has since continued unabated. Beyond the preservation zoning, no significant assistance has been afforded the industry by any government entity and, with the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement and similar trade agreements, the challenges to manufacturing have been compounded.

In recent years, several organizations representing the apparel industry and real estate interests have produced conflicting reports on the impact of the zoning and the status of the apparel industry. One side posits that the City is losing countless millions in tax revenue because of ineffective zoning that suppresses property values and rents; while the other supports a stronger enforcement of the zoning and additional assistance from the government.

The FCBID has held discussions among the various parties affected by the special zoning. We have communicated the feelings of those individuals to City officials in the previous administration, and we have begun to do the same with the new Bloomberg administration.

At the suggestion of the Department of City Planning, in the coming year, the FCBID will commission a detailed, objective study of the issue. It is anticipated that the study’s results will not only guide this organization in the formulation of policies and direction of services, but also be of use to City government in influencing its policies affecting the district and the fashion industry.