BY KEVIN DUGGAN
City offi cials plan to offi -
cially kickstart the hotly-contested
Gowanus neighborhood
rezoning process by January
2021 — and they’ll start
meeting with local community
stakeholders about the
proposed land-use changes in
the coming weeks, Mayor Bill
de Blasio’s housing czar announced
on Sept 29.
“I’m delighted to confi rm
today, with the support of council
members Brad Lander and
Stephen Levin, that we plan
to restart community engagement
in the coming weeks and
certify the Gowanus neighborhood
rezoning by January of
2021,” said Deputy Mayor for
housing and economic development
Vicki Been at a City
and State webinar on Sept. 29.
The sprawling zoning overhaul
will allow for construction
of 8,000 new homes — 3,000
of which will be earmarked as
“affordable” units tied to residents’
income levels. If the idea
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goes according to plan, the
change could bring some 20,000
new people to the neighborhood
bordering the noxious canal.
The new zoning laws would
also bring improvements to the
area’s public housing developments
and parks, along with
new waterfront open spaces —
including a new 1.5 acre park
at the Gowanus Green site,
also known as Public Place,
which is currently undergoing
a state Brownfi eld Cleanup
Program, according to Been.
The newly-released timeline
will allow for almost a year to
get the proposal through the
city’s roughly seven-month Uniform
Land Use Review Procedure
before Lander, Levin, and
de Blasio are all term limited
out of offi ce in January 2022 —
which would leave the rezoning
in the hands of a yet-to-be-determined
mayor and city Council.
Been’s announcement comes
after more than six months of
uncertainty around the rezoning’s
future. De Blasio halted
all ULURPs in March as the
coronavirus wreaked havoc
on the Five Boroughs, before
restarting the clock on the reviews
citywide on Sept. 14.
Councilman Lander —
whose district covers most of
the area — previously urged
city planners to restart the process
soon to ensure that there
would be enough time for “robust
community engagement.”
The legislator, who is running
to be the city’s Comptroller,
has said that the rezoning
application would still need to
meet some conditions to gain
his full support, chiefl y among
them a plan for investments in
local public housing.
“We simply cannot build
a shining new mix of marketrate
and affordable housing,
while leaving the overwhelming
majority of low-income residents
and people of color who
live in the area today in dilapidated
and deteriorating buildings
next door,” said Lander in
a joint statement with Levin.
The Gowanus Canal from the Carroll Street Bridge. Photo by Kevin Duggan
The two lawmakers added
that they believe in the potential
of the land use change to
bring more affordable housing
units to an area sandwiched
between wealthy brownstone
neighborhoods — unlike most
of de Blasio’s neighborhoodwide
rezonings which have
been in areas of mostly working
class people of color.
“If we get Gowanus right —
it’s not there yet, but it’s clearly
possible — it has the potential to
help us move forward from this
dark time toward a more equitable,
sustainable, and economically
vibrant city,” they said.
Opponents and proponents
of the rezoning launched dueling
petitions earlier this year to
express their competing views
about continuing the process
during the pandemic — with
Assemblywoman and borough
presidential candidate Jo Anne
Simon joining the opposition,
saying the pandemic robbed
the community of a proper opportunity
to give input.
Meanwhile, the federal Superfund
cleanup of the heavily
polluted canal is scheduled
to start in November, even as
city environmental bigs seek
to delay the construction of
crucial retention tanks as part
of the channel’s cleanse.
And we’re off!
Gowanus rezoning to start by January
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