Late on Friday, the city’s Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development (HPD), the agency in charge of plans to develop the City-owned lot at 388 Hudson Street (Clarkson Street) announced: “The community visioning phase of the 388 Hudson Street RFP process is coming to an end and HPD will be sharing a summary of the input received and next steps at Manhattan Community Board 2’s Land Use and Housing Committee meeting. If you are not able to attend, the full findings will be published in the Community Visioning Report on the project website.” That meeting will begin at 6:30 pm this Wednesday, January 10. More information and registration can be found here.

Village Preservation is calling for the City to require that the development on this precious City-owned land (previously promised as a park) remain 100% permanently affordable (they have thus far indicated requirements would guarantee affordability for 30, 40, or 60 years). We are also calling for HPD to rethink the design, which was for a tall setback tower of up to 355 ft. (the tallest ever built in Greenwich Village), and instead require a lower, bulkier building that minimizes shadows on and sets back from JJ Walker Park, and maintains a size and design commensurate with the surrounding larger loft buildings. Through this process we generated almost 2,000 letters to HPD from the public calling for similar changes. So far HPD has refused to make any substantive changes to its plans.

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