Mayor de Blasio is determined to prove before leaving office that he is an “honest politician” – that is, one who remains bought. And nothing makes the case quite as good as his efforts to protect the hotel workers union despite the devastating blow that would hit the city’s economy.
Hizzoner almost promised the Hotel Trades Council that it would eliminate competition from new hotels, or at least make sure they unionized, after the group approved its embarrassing White House offer in 2019 – and provided 70 percent of its donors. as the post reported.
Now the mayor wants to make amends: the officials held a hearing last week his plan to force every new hotel developer Obtaining a “special permit” from the city and going through a long, expensive, and influential process to review uniform land use, a requirement that discourages any reasonable developer from building a new hotel.
This is when the pandemic has devastated local hotels: As Carl Campanile der Post reported TuesdayAccording to the city, 146 have closed, which is a full third of the available rooms. Vijay Dandapani, head of the Hotel Association, says there are more than 200 hotels: “We fell off a cliff.”
With no hotels left and new ones unable to be replaced, the city will no longer be able to accept tourists when they return after the pandemic – especially given Hizzoner’s other favor for the union: strangling alternative accommodations like Airbnb.
Could there be a better way to stop the city’s economic recovery after COVID? Pre-pandemic tourism, a 2018 report noted, With almost 300,000 jobs, Gotham is one of the top industries – more than the financial sector. A quarter of sales in restaurants and bars, which were also life sustaining thanks to the lockdowns, came from tourists.
The city now offers no credible justification for the plan. “We have so much development,” claims the mayor, which clearly does not apply to hotels these days, but is definitely a question of the market.
He also says hotels create “more activity” and “vehicle traffic,” which has an impact on communities. But that’s what zoning is for; There is no need to put every potential developer through a lengthy process that costs a fortune and potentially leads to a dead end. Not a single hotel has been built in parts of the city where the city already requires special permits.
No wonder that planning experts tear the plan apart: “No problems are identified that are caused by hotels in business districts,” notes former lawyer for the city planning department, David Karnovsky. “No special permits are given if the story is a guide,” predicts hotel design architect Gene Kaufman.
For de Blasio, of course, this is mission accomplished – and a political debt paid.
