Cheered by Mayor-elect de Blasio, the City Council went deep into the political tank in killing the critically important rezoning of the east Midtown business district.
More than a year in the making, the now-moribund rezoning was the product of intense studies and was refined through endless hours of public consultations. Everyone from Mayor Bloomberg to tale-of-two-cities de Blasio to the moguls of the real estate industry agreed that reworking stultifying decades-old development rules was crucial to maintaining Manhattan’s global commercial preeminence.
Among those purporting to recognize the rezoning’s long-term existential import was Councilman Dan Garodnick, who, as the local member, held outsized sway over the plan. Announcing its death, he and spent-force Speaker Christine Quinn made noises that the dollars and promised transit upgrades were not quite right. De Blasio chimed in that he will seek better terms.
This was all cynical eyewash. The overriding reason why Garodnick and Quinn pulled the plug was opposition by Peter Ward, head of the hotel employees union. Ward wanted something extraordinary written into the zoning law: He wanted the statute to bar future construction of hotels in the rough rectangle from 39th to 57th Sts. and from Third to Fifth Aves. — unless the City Council gave special permission for construction.
No operator would dare to ask for such approval unless he or she came at Ward’s side. Thus the Council and mayor would become Ward’s organizing muscle: No Ward, no hotel.
To be clear about a crucial point: This Editorial Board strongly supports collective bargaining, admires the economic power of unionization, backed Ward in a union-management dispute at the Plaza Hotel, has applauded efforts to organize fast-food workers and severely criticized city officials for standing by at the demise of well-paying union jobs at the Bronx’s Stella d’Oro bakery.
We part company here because government must remain neutral in labor-management relations, impartially enforcing the rules as written. Forced union organizing is not part of the brief, even in a situation in which the number of hotels is growing, many of them with non-union labor and likely lower and less attractive benefits.
This is exactly the trading down that de Blasio targeted in his campaign. He will have to recognize, as he starts the long rezoning process over, that, much as anyone might like, the mayor and Council would pervert land-use rules by applying them to union drives.
As for Garodnick’s hope of succeeding Quinn as speaker, he hurt his cause by playing small ball — and scared small ball at that.
