Ship
happens!
Gowanus cleanup
barge sinks
Barges moored in the distance off Gowanus Bay seen
from Columbia Street on Jan. 26. Photo by Kevin Duggan
COURIER LIFE, JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2021 3
Photo by Craig Hubert
WATERFRONT
the Gownaus rezoning bring?
rezoning, however, will come from
private owners and developers, following
the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary
Housing guidelines that require
some price-targeted units in
otherwise for-profi t buildings.
The MIH program includes
four options for the amount of
housing units in each building,
and how costly those units would
be — although it’s unclear which
of the four MIH options will be
required, as that would be determined
during the rezoning’s public
review process.
Lander has said he wants option
No. 1, among the most affordable
of the four. If other options
are selected, it could mean the
project could create little meaningful
affordable housing.
Under the MIH option that
Lander currently champions, 25
percent of whatever units are created
will be designated at-or-below
60 percent of the area median
income, and 10 percent of those
will be set at or below 40 percent
of the area median income.
Potentially, that could mean
approximately 2,525 units will be
designated at-or-below 60 percent
of the area median income, with
approximately 252 of those units
set at-or-below 40 percent of the
area median income.
To put this in perspective, a
family of four at 40 percent of the
AMI would have a combined income
of roughly $45,480; the same
at 60 percent of the area median
income would have a combined
income of roughly $68,220.
At those percentages, onebedroom
apartments would rent
at somewhere between $717 and
$1,143 a month. Two-bedroom
apartments would range from
$854 to $1,366 a month, and threebedroom
apartments would run
$978 to $1,570 a month.
But exactly how many total
units would actually be built under
MIH is anyone’s guess — the
8,000 total is a City Planning estimate.
For comparison, more than
10,000 units were produced by
the 2005 Williamsburg rezoning,
including 1,501 affordable units
(none were required).
Nothing is currently solidifi
ed. The ULURP process has yet
to begin. When, or if, it does, the
affordability breakdown under
Mandatory Inclusionary Housing
can change, with an ultimate
decision being made by the
City Council when they vote on
the rezoning.
Lander, as the area’s representative
in the Council, will hold
signifi cant power to shape the
land-use change, but only if the
city can push through the measure
before both he and Mayor
Bill de Blasio — who is also a proponent
of the rezoning — leave offi
ce next January.
The city had planned to certify
its Universal Land Use Review Procedure
(ULURP) on Jan. 19, but
a lawsuit over transparency concerns
has halted that until a judge
rules on the lawsuit.
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A large barge loaded with more than 800 tons
of polluted sludge from the Gowanus Canal sank
in the Gowanus Bay on Jan. 25.
The boat containing the dredged sediment
from the canal bed laced with toxic materials like
coal tar was moored in Gowanus Bay, and Massachusetts
based contractor Cashman Dredging
discovered the barge after it had become submerged,
according to EPA.
The boat sank in an area of the harbor called
the Bay Ridge fl ats, a 8-to-20 foot deep shoal area
off the coast of Sunset Park, EPA rep Natalie Loney
told the local watchdog organization the Gowanus
Canal Community Advisory Group.
Cashman mobilized pumps, booms, and silt
curtains to the location and pumped water from
the vessel into a different empty barge during
low tide as the beleaguered boat rested upright on
mudfl ats, according to the agency.
The agency said that the contractor discovered
a small hole on the barge’s hull, which likely let
water leak into it slowly, according to an update
EPA released Wednesday evening. The barge became
submerged to varying degrees depending
on the tide cycle.
After pumping all the water out of the boat and
bringing it back afl oat, Cashman patched the hole
and — with U.S. Coast Guard approval — maneuvered
the watercraft back to the Superfund staging
site and Huntington and Smith streets.
On Jan. 22, Cashman loaded the barge up with
some 850 tons of fi lthy Gowanus sludge, known locally
as black mayonnaise, as part of the ongoing
Superfund Cleanup, but luckily most of the slime
stayed in the container and there weren’t any immediate
signs of pollution in the waters, according
to EPA.
“No visible sheens were observed after the
incident was noted and initial observations indicate
that the bulk of the sediment in the hopper
container within the barge remains in place,” the
agency wrote.
The agency claimed that no negative impacts
resulted from the incident, but that it will continue
to investigate it.