A new group has been created to represent the interests of residents living in buildings along the East River. Here’s the news release they put out last night:
Bridging the gap of historically inadequate Community Outreach in the LES Waterfront Community is the Goal! New Alliance of Lower East Side Resident Leaders Say: Local resident leaders have formed a new alliance to help provide more effective flows of information between local residents and CBO’s, developers, elected officials, Community Board 3, etc. The resident leaders of Land’s End I Tenant Association, Land’s End II Tenant Association and Two Bridges Tower have formed a new community group; Tenants United Fighting for Lower East Side or TUFF-LES. The formation of this group is in response to a growing sentiment that efforts to reach out to the Lower East Side waterfront community have long been inadequate and selective, resulting in a number of so-called community developments, events & uses that do not appear to have actual community input or involvement.
- Residents need to know what’s going to happen with the Extell Development in terms of affordable units and an affordable supermarket.
- Residents want to take ownership of park space programming, and oversee maintenance and care of the East River Esplanade.
- Residents want to be informed and drive the uses for Piers 35, 36 & 42. Residents need to know about the alleged impacts or benefits of the proposed Healthcare Chaplaincy Network development.
- Our community is underserved in a number of key areas; we need more youth programs to keep our kids engaged and out of trouble, more affordable daycare & afterschool options for working households with threadbare support and more active but targeted and responsible community policing which is why we want to help direct and focus resources, funding and efforts where they are most needed
Residents want to preserve the current stock of affordable housing and make sure that any future development of housing is responsible and affordable to residents of our community district. In recent years residents have grown concerned as we’ve lost our local supermarket, seen an increase in commercial and luxury interests in our neighborhood and have noticed a general uptick in more transient folks moving in. These influences in many cases are making it difficult for long-term residents of modest means to stay in the community they love. We need to make up for the lacking outreach in our community and take a more proactive stance. Any requests for comment may be sent to the following:
Tenants United Fighting For Lower East Side c/o Land’s End I Tenant Association 257 Clinton Street, Lobby Office New York, NY 10002 les-neighbor@tuffles.org
The statement was put out by Marc Richardson, the tenant leader at Lands End I. Steering committee members listed include: Tanya Castro, Daisy Echevarria, Sheila Hart, Trever Holland, Aaron Gonzalez and Richardson.
