Councilwoman Margaret Chin Pushing for Affordable Housing to Replace Parking Garage on Essex Street
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The city is currently amidst an unneeded $5.8 million renovation of the municipal parking garage straddling Ludlow and Essex Streets. But that’s not stopping Councilwoman Margaret Chin from her continued lobbying for affordable housing on this spot.
The land-use division of City Council argues that the garage could still be developed into a 90-unit apartment building. After all, the site was included in the original plans to redevelop SPURA (i.e. Essex Crossing), but was dropped early on due to demand for area parking options. Apparently 500 such spots were already compromised in order to support the overall project.
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[Photo: Michielli + Wyetzner]The Wall Street Journal filed a report yesterday.
Community Board 3 hasn’t weighed in on the matter just yet. “I know Margaret is looking for sites and I hope we find some but that’s probably not the best site since you’d have to develop the perfectly good parking garage,” Linda Jones, chair of the land use committee, told the paper.
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