BY KEVIN DUGGAN
It’s a battle of petitions!
A group of pro-development
advocates have launched an initiative
pushing city regulators
to go ahead with the planned
Gowanus rezoning, countering
a recent effort by locals to halt
the plans due to the COVID-19
outbreak.
The organization Open New
York started the new petition —
which has garnered more than
100 signatures — supporting
the neighborhood-wide rezoning
because new zoning laws
would encourage developers to
build below-market-rate housing
— which has become even
more important during the pandemic,
according one member.
“The rezoning gives us a
chance to get back to the neighborhood
we were, and we want
to be — a place where working
New Yorkers can afford to live,”
said Alec Schierenbeck, a member
of Open New York.
The Park Slope-based advocate
called out the authors of
the original anti-rezoning petition,
COURIER L 18 IFE, JUNE 19-25, 2020
saying they were exploiting
a global health crisis, and
that they have been opposed to
the upzoning long before the
coronavirus.
“The people calling for a
moratorium now, have been
calling for a moratorium last
year and in some cases since
2008,” he said. “I think it’s cravenly
opportunistic to suggest
that COVID is somehow now
the reason they oppose the rezoning
— it’s ghoulish to me.”
Open New York has started
lobbying in recent years for
building more housing across
the city in order to bring prices
down with a higher supply —
a view shared by other advocacy
groups around the country
operating under the banner
YIMBY, or “yes in my backyard.”
The movement is counter to
the acronym NIMBY — or “not
in my back yard” — which is
used to describe developmentaverse
sentiments that often
dominate local community
meetings.
The rezoning would allow
for both more total development
and taller building projects of
up to 30 stories in the neighborhood,
which city planners have
estimated would bring around
8,200 new housing units to the
area by 2035, including some
3,000 below-market-rate homes.
The opponents of the rezoning
last week launched their
online petition and fi red off a
letter to local Councilman Brad
Lander and other city, state,
and federal offi cials asking
them halt the plans because of
the virus.
The request claimed that
the scheme was too developerfriendly
and that government
offi cials should not be giving
away benefi ts like tax incentives
and public land as city coffers
face a substantial budget
shortfall due to the health crisis
which has ravaged the city.
Lander said in an interview
that the rezoning at its core was
about creating more affordable
housing — and the virus only
spotlighted the need to build
A sketch of development along the Gowanus with the neighborhood’s
rezoning. Department of City Planning
more.
“There are millions of New
Yorkers who can’t pay their
rent right now,” said Lander.
“The units won’t arrive on time
to meet the need, but it exposes
how many New Yorkers are
housing-insecure.”
“The Gowanus process, love
it or hate it, has been one of the
most participatory processes,
maybe in the history of planet
earth,” the legislator added.
“We need to honor that and restart
it in a way that has robust
community engagement.”
The city has yet to announce
when it will start the seven-tonine
month land use review
procedure.
Mayor Bill de Blasio put
a temporary halt on those reviews
in March via executive
order — which limits an already
slim timeframe, as both
Hizzoner and Lander will be
term-limited out of their current
posts by the end of 2021.
“The deadline is real,”
Lander said. “We’re in offi ce
for another 18 months, that is
enough time for a real process.
It’s not a lot of time for that and
if we’re going to move forward
a decision needs to be made to
do so soon.”
PETITION DUEL!
Opposing groups spar over Gowanus rezoning
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