BY KEVIN DUGGAN
They want to put the green
in Gowanus Green!
A group of Gowanus open
space advocates are pushing
to halt the city’s plans to build
a mixed-use affordable housing
development on a polluted
brownfi eld site next to the noxious
canal, saying city builders
should turn the six-acre lot into
a park instead.
“I think there’s a big push
to densify and I think, if we’ve
learned anything from COVID,
we need to think about how we
build our cities and how we focus
on open space,” said Mac
Thayer, who lives across the
street from the site near Smith
and Fifth streets.
Thayer co-founded the group
Gowanus Lands with fellow local
Corey Smith, and the duo recently
released renderings for
their proposed park that would
be constructed in place of the
government’s current plans —
which call for a 950 unit housing
COURIER L 6 IFE, AUGUST 21-27, 2020
complex dubbed Gowanus
Green that would be erected
after state environmental honchos
are overseeing a cleanup
of the toxic site.
Their aspirational illustration
shows the canal-front
space covered in fi elds of grass
sloping toward the water, with
trees, winding paths, benches,
and park goers milling about
on the oasis abutting Brooklyn’s
Nautical Purgatory.
“The renderings are really
more of a fi rst concept, we’re
just trying to spark people’s
imagination and give them
a sense of what it could be,”
Thayer said. “People have suggested
dog runs, farming, or
community gardens — we’ve
had one person suggest an
above-ground pool.”
The city has been eager to
develop the publicly-owned lot
— which used to house a gas
works plant until the 1960s —
since the Michael Bloomberg
administration, most recently
relaunching the project as part
of the impending neighborhoodwide
rezoning late last year.
The gas company that operated
the plant years ago was
consumed by modern-day National
Grid, and in 2019, the utility
company was tasked with
a two-year state-supervised
cleanup of the soil to get toxic
coal tar out of the ground in an
effort to make the place safe to
live on.
The proposed joint scheme
by the departments of Housing
and Preservation and City
Planning would add some 2,000
residents to the area, housed
in 100 percent sub-market-rate
apartments varying in height
Public Place, also known as Gowanus Green, is undergoing a state-supervised
brownfi eld cleanup program. File photo by Amalia Arms
between nine and 28 stories
tall next to brownstone Carroll
Gardens — one of the priciest
nabes in the borough.
Thayer, however, said he’s
collected more than 700 signatures
for the city to consider the
park plan as an alternative.
Spokespeople from both city
agencies noted that offi cials
have crafted their plan for the
site and the larger neighborhood
rezoning after years of
input by residents and that the
schemes address a diverse set of
local needs.
“Affordable housing and
open space are two essential
aspects of the Gowanus
Neighborhood Plan,” said DCP
spokesman Joe Marvilli in a
statement.
Thayer said Gowanus Lands
is not steadfast against housing
development on the site, but he
wanted to add the group’s proposals
to the many city and advocacy
organizations that have
been hashing out what to do
with the space over the years.
“Our group is certainly not
against development,” he said.
“We are seeking to respectfully
add our voice to the conversation
in accordance with the
public process.”
LAND GRAB
Gowanus locals release rendering for proposed
park, call on city to halt affordable housing plan
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