Real Estate Lobbyists Linked to Rivington House Behind Inwood Rezoning Push
(DNAINFO) Carolina Pichardo | April 17, 2017 — A controversial lobbyist with ties to the Rivington House debacle has been barraging the neighborhood with calls on behalf of a developer in a bid to rekindle a dormant city rezoning plan for the neighborhood, DNAinfo New York has learned.
Capalino + Company — a key player in the controversial Rivington House deed switch that turned a Lower East Side AIDS hospice facility into a luxury condo development this past year — and Taconic Investment Partners, which purchased the former Pathmark lot on 410 W. 207th Street early last year, have been behind an effort to jump-start a project to rezone uptown.
The Inwood rezoning project, better known as the Inwood NYC Neighborhood Study, is the city’s Economic Development Corporation’s plan to rezone streets north of Academy St. and east of 10th Avenue for mixed-use developments and waterfronts.
The project hasn’t publicly come before the community since last July, although the EDC met with local community groups to address specific questions and concerns, such as the proposed height and density of buildings along W. 218th Street.
But local groups said they were worried by the the group’s efforts.
“The involvement of Capalino + Partners is extremely concerning. They are notorious for using underhanded tactics to circumvent community objections to bad projects and influence the political process on behalf of its developer clients,” said Graham Ciraulo, of Northern Manhattan Is Not 4 Sale, the coalition initially opposed to the Inwood rezoning project.