Together, we helped protect 360 community spaces from the City’ s tax lien sale
A strategy for a more resilient NYC people to publicize this information so that affected organizations could petition to be removed from the list. This successful campaign brought together grassroots and elected advocates to protect community properties from the annual sale and to champion new legislation that will stop this problem in future years. As a result, 360 community properties were removed from the list prior to the sale.
Protecting Our Places
Together, we helped protect 360 community spaces from the City’ s tax lien sale
Every year, NYC Department of Finance sells tax debt owed to the city to private speculative debt collectors in the tax lien sale. This sale routinely includes active nonprofits, even though they are exempt from paying taxes as per New York State law.
In February, in direct response to our advocacy, the NYC Department of Finance published a list of charity properties with recent tax-exemptions heading to the 2017 Tax Lien Sale. There were 536 nonprofit-owned places on that list. We made a map and called for
Community Land Trusts
A strategy for a more resilient NYC people to publicize this information so that affected organizations could petition to be removed from the list. This successful campaign brought together grassroots and elected advocates to protect community properties from the annual sale and to champion new legislation that will stop this problem in future years. As a result, 360 community properties were removed from the list prior to the sale.
But its not over yet! There remain hundreds of nonprofit owned properties who were erroneously included in past sales and now are under threat of foreclosure. We are now reaching out to support the groups who own these at-risk community resources in protecting their places.
In October 2015, NYC’ s Department of Housing Preservation and Development invited 596 Acres to be a community partner on the Resilient Edgemere Community Planning Initiative, an initiative that would revise the Edgemere Urban Renewal Area Plan. This planning effort built on conversations 596 Acres started with residents, nonprofits and city agencies about updating the active Edgemere Urban Renewal Area Plan immediately following Hurricane Sandy’ s devastation in 2012.
At a series of public workshops and meetings, 596 Acres advocated that resident-led campaigns to create community gardens be included in the plan. We also amplified residents’ demands for a community land trust to allow long-term community stewardship of land.
This March, we learned that the final version of the Resilient Edgemere Community Plan protects existing community space resources, identifies community gardens as a strategy for communities to adapt to increased flood risk, including the Edgemere Coalition Garden on Beach 43rd Street, and includes a community land trust as strategy to facilitate long-term affordability and resilient stewardship.
We are thrilled to see the City embrace community land trusts as a strategy for a more resilient Edgemere and NYC. In coming years we hope to support New Yorkers in advocating for community land access to be central in future city planning.