The Enforcement Project

Supporting Apparel-Related Businesses in the Garment District

The Garment District of 2007 is the creative engine of NYC’s signature fashion and theater industries. The Garment District is also one of the city’s last functional economic districts. The Enforcement Project works to confront a challenge facing these support businesses, which include apparel factories, trim and fabric suppliers and costume design studios: the rapidly decreasing supply of affordable, stable space. The supply is dwindling due to lease non-renewals, rising rents and legal as well as illegal conversion of apparel space, leading to a situation where demand for apparel space exceeds supply.

GIDC began assisting the City of New York in 2005 in its program to increase enforcement of the zoning designed to protect apparel-related businesses in the Garment District. Enforcement consists of conducting outreach to Garment District building owners and tenants in regard to the zoning provisions and working closely with the Department of Buildings (DOB) to monitor and follow up on construction applications, illegal conversion complaints, inspections and violations.

In addition, the Enforcement Project carried out a comprehensive survey of all zoned buildings in 2005, which showed that, in spite of a decade of non-enforcement of the zoning and ever-increasing real estate pressure, the Garment District still earns its name: Almost 60% of the zoned District is occupied by a wide variety of apparel uses. 16% of the zoned District is occupied by apparel production, including almost 250 factories and sample rooms, employing over 4,600 workers.

To see the complete survey results, click here.
To see a Garment District fact sheet, click here.
To see a joint labor/management statement on the Garment District zoning, click here.

Please address any zoning or enforcement questions, comments or suggestions to info@gidc.org. or at 212.575 5040

What to do if you suspect an illegal conversion:
Call 311 to report construction activity in a protected building that looks like an illegal conversion. The operator should log illegal conversion complaints under code 92, and should be told as specifically as possible where in the building and on which floor the activity is taking place. In addition, please contact GIDC after you call 311 so that we can track follow up to the complaint.

Why the Garment District needs special zoning
Apparel-related businesses that remain in the Garment District in 2005 face two threats, one global and the other very local. The better known threat is the changes in the global economy that have dramatically decreased manufacturing activity in the Garment District over several decades. Nevertheless, a manufacturing core remains in New York City that meets specific needs for the fashion industry. For many of these businesses, it is local real estate and land use pressures that place their future in doubt. Without zoning that dedicates space to apparel-related uses over a long period of time, commercial and residential tenants that can afford to pay more per square foot have an advantage in the rental market.

A 1987 amendment to New York City’s Zoning Resolution created the Special Garment Center District specifically to shield the garment industry from the effects of real estate speculation caused by the redevelopment of Times Square to the north. The dot-com boom and resulting rising rents of the late 1990s and early 2000 created more uncertainty for apparel-related businesses. And in 2005 the Special Garment Center District was confronted with new development pressure on its western boundary when the Hudson Yards rezoning, which allows much denser commercial and residential usage west of 8th Avenue, was approved.

The GIDC white paper on the economic importance of the Garment District, “A New West Side: A New Beginning for the Garment Center,” discusses the relationship between the Hudson Yards rezoning and the future of the Garment District in more depth.]

Enforcement of the zoning is crucial: the New York Industrial Retention Network found in a 2000 survey that over 200 manufacturing spaces in the Garment District had been illegally converted to office space in the decade after 1993, when funds for enforcement were cut. [To read the full report, “The Garment Center: Still in Fashion,” http://www.nyirn.org/manu_rpt_2.html. To read about zoning enforcement in particular, go straight to Part 3.]

On the positive side, zoning seems to have benefited apparel-related businesses in the Special Garment Center District in spite of the period of weak enforcement. The District has retained more firms, workers and wages than other garment industry clusters in New York City. Indeed, from 1989 to 2002 the District increased its share of citywide wages in the apparel industry from 35% to 46% (Source: NYS DOL).

GIDC is working to ensure that the City’s current program of increased enforcement will give the zoning the opportunity to support the apparel industry to the full extent envisioned at inception.

How the Garment District zoning works

The zoning only applies to buildings in Preservation Areas P-1 and P-2, which are two sub areas of the Special Garment Center District. There is no provision in the zoning for rent control; apparel-related businesses must pay what the market will bear. The supporting mechanism through which the zoning works is the preservation of space for apparel-related uses, the assumption being that if only a certain sector can occupy a space, it does not make sense to charge more rent than that sector can afford to pay.

A variety of apparel-related uses is allowed in the Preservation Areas, including manufacturing, wholesale and showrooms. A range of non-apparel uses is also allowed. However, conversion of space from allowable uses to general commercial office use in
P-1 (between Broadway and 8th Avenue) is prohibited unless an equal amount of space elsewhere in the Preservation Areas is first preserved for a more specific set of primarily manufacturing uses.

The zoning requirements change in the P-2 Preservation Area (between 8th and 9th Avenues) because those blocks are now part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Area. Whether or not a building in P-2 is protected by the Garment District zoning depends on its size:

As-of-right conversions to office or residential space are allowed in buildings with less than 70,000 square feet.

In buildings with more than 70,000 square feet, the preservation requirements still apply when converting space from allowable uses. Because the underlying zoning of P-2 was changed, conversion to residential as well as office use is now allowed in these blocks as long as building owners set aside the requisite space. Building owners may apply to the Department of City Planning for authorization to waive the preservation requirements, but will have to prove that the space has not been occupied by an allowable-use tenant for three years.

For the full text of the Special Garment Center District zoning, see Article XII, Chapter 1 of the Zoning Resolution at http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/zone/art12c01.pdf.