The Garment District’s next runway show won’t feature couture—it’ll feature condos. And rentals. And, crucially, loads of affordable apartments.

On Thursday, the City Council gave the green light to the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan , a sweeping rezoning that will bring roughly 9,700 new apartments (including about 3,000 permanently affordable units) to a 42-block swath of Midtown South covering parts of the Garment District, Chelsea and Flatiron . It’s the largest residential neighborhood rezoning Manhattan’s seen in two decades and it finally lifts 1960s-era zoning rules that treated living in this central, transit-rich area like a zoning violation.

Right now, most of these blocks, stretching from 23rd to 40th streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues, are dominated by manufact

See Full Page