By Hellen Zaboulani
The City Planning Commission is finally set to resume business following the March 16 closure due to the novel Coronavirus. The commission is slated to resume via virtual meetings beginning in August. As reported by Crain’s NY, the news is most significant to the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn, which had been working for over five years to secure a rezoning. The discussed Gowanus rezoning aims to boost density and build mix-used projects along certain corridors of the neighborhood. Before the shutdown, Gowanus was gearing up to become a rare rezoning success for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, following hiccups in Inwood, Southern Boulevard and Bushwick, to name just a few. Now, enthusiasts are again cautiously optimistic that the rezoning can get underway.
“I believe that the core reasons for doing this make even more sense now than they did before,” Councilman Brad Lander said, saying the rezoning presents an opportunity to convert Gowanus into “a genuinely integrated neighborhood in a place of real opportunity with real investments.” When the Coronavirus broke out shutting down all efforts, Lander had expressed concern that the delay may mean that the plans cannot be finalized by the time his term ends next year, unless the city could move forward within the next few months.
The rezoning plan “will address equity and health issues brought into sharp relief by the pandemic,” and its next steps “will be shared with the community and on our website,” city planning spokesman Joe Marvilli said. He did not give details regarding the timeline for advancing with the rezoning. City Hall Representatives did not respond to Crain’s request for comment about how highly the Gowanus rezoning will be prioritized when they get back to business. Deputy Mayor Vicki Been, however, had previously said that the city would put emphasis on projects that will create affordable housing and add jobs.
The Gowanus rezoning targets adding over 8,000 new apartments to the neighborhood by 2035, one-third of them being affordable housing. Lander also has worked into the project, a commitment to fixing the neighborhood’s public housing buildings. “It’s not easy to have good processes in a world where you can’t have big public meetings, so there’s work to do there,” said councilman Lander, conceding the difficulty of continuing with zoom meetings, “but I believe we can do it.”
The rezoning effort has also been bolstered by Open New York, a volunteer group dedicated to adding housing to the city. In June, the group started a letter-writing campaign asking the city to restart work on the Gowanus rezoning. Alec Schierenbeck, Open NY Member, said that the reopening of the land use review process was good news, but is not a guarantee that the deliberated changes will be made for the Brooklyn neighborhood. “Now comes the hard part,” Schierenbeck said. “It’s on the city to prove that it wants to build affordable housing in Gowanus, and it has to put forward a plan that’s going to earn the support it needs to actually get done.”
