We are thrilled to report that late Friday Mayor Adams vetoed a draconian, punitive measure we opposed introduced by (now former) City Councilmember Margaret Chin and approved in December by the City Council (including local Councilmembers Carlina Rivera and Corey Johnson). That measure would have imposed crippling fines on noncertified artist residents of certain types of housing in SoHo, NoHo, and Chinatown, even though many lived there for decades with full knowledge of and no enforcement by the City. Longtime residents, some on fixed incomes, and others who inherited their apartments from certified-artist spouses or parents, would have been severely penalized, with virtually no way of remaining in their homes and resolving the perpetually escalating fines. We thank Mayor Adams for his thoughtful and appropriate rejection of this wrongheaded, pernicious measure.

We also thank the hundreds of you who answered the call and sent letters and tweets to the Mayor’s office urging the veto — your advocacy made a HUGE difference. Great thanks also go to new Councilmember Christopher Marte for his strong leadership on this issue, as well as that of the Coalition for Fairness in SoHo and NoHo, and all the allied community groups who like us wrote the Mayor and mobilized members in support of the veto.

We are continuing to work in concert with fellow groups to amend or remove more of the most onerous and misguided provisions of the recently approved SoHo/NoHo/Chinatown Upzoning + Displacement plan.

Read coverage in The Village Sun.