FAQs

Why did the neighborhood need to be rezoned?

Gowanus suffers from an acute affordable housing shortage, limited green space, and lacks the infrastructure needed to address sewer overflows and rising sea levels. While the EPA is in the process of cleaning up the Canal, the land around the waterway was zoned for industrial uses of the 19th and early 20th centuries and much of it is heavily contaminated. The Gowanus rezoning will transform a waterfront that has been polluted for decades into a resilient, clean, publicly accessible community resource, and create infrastructure that will improve quality of life and accelerate environmental progress throughout the neighborhood.  Developers will be required to remediate the land before new buildings can be occupied. Without the rezoning, the property owners would not have been able to remediate the sites and the land would have remained contaminated.

A rezoned Gowanus will bring new publicly accessible open space along a vibrant, resilient waterfront, thousands of below-market housing units (the vast majority of which will be built on the parcels along the canal), and a mix of retail and community facilities that include the “Gowanus Mix” of artists, makers, and light industrial businesses. The need to preserve and create space for the creative economy has never been more important. The City-led Gowanus rezoning is uniquely positioned to support New York’s overall economic recovery with a special focus on creative enterprises following the devastation of the pandemic.

In addition, the former Manufacturing zoning all along the Canal permitted a variety of less-than-desirable uses, including low-job-generating operations such as mini-storage warehouses and “last mile” distribution centers – along with auto-related uses, storage, and parking lots.  Such uses did not require any form of open space or shorefront access and would not have provided the community with the other substantial benefits the rezoning will deliver.

Was the community involved in the rezoning process?

The City-led Gowanus Rezoning was the result of years of intense community engagement, beginning with Bridging Gowanus, a planning process championed by then-City Councilmember Brad Lander, with the participation of hundreds of neighborhood residents between 2013 and 2016 who helped shape the vision for a revitalized Gowanus. It served as the basis for the Department of City Planning’s Places Study, a community engagement initiative to identify area residents’ priorities for the rezoning, followed by the City’s formal zoning proposal. Former Councilmembers Lander and Steve Levin were strong proponents of community participation in the Gowanus rezoning planning process that spanned more than eight years.

“Together, we are setting the stage for a more diverse, more sustainable, thriving, creative neighborhood that will welcome new residents while improving and preserving the ability of public housing residents, artists, small businesses, and neighbors to continue to thrive here for generations to come…”

— Councilmember Brad Lander, “Council and Community Members Announce Agreement with City Hall in Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning, Achieving a Plan for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth,” November 10th, 2021

How will the City ensure that the commitments made as part of the Gowanus rezoning will be realized?

 At the time of the passage of the rezoning, the City reached an agreement with the area’s City Councilmembers, Community Board 6 and neighborhood civic organizations on key rezoning commitments. Entitled the Points of Agreement, the commitments include the delivery of thousands of new affordable apartments, $200 million in City funding for repairs of the nearby NYCHA housing developments, and hundreds of millions of dollars to fund flooding and stormwater infrastructure and build parks and schools. A Community Oversight Task Force, made up of neighborhood stakeholders and led by a professional facilitator chosen by Councilmembers Shahana Hanif and Lincoln Restler, will ensure that the commitments in the Points of Agreement are achieved.

Will the new park space be accessible to the public and not just the people who live in the new buildings?

Yes. The waterfront esplanade and open space will be for everyone in the community and not just the residents of the new developments. Gowanus Forward is committed to providing open space that is accessible to the entire neighborhood and linking the waterfront to upland streets.

What will the open space include? Will it be kid-friendly? Pet-friendly?

The publicly accessible open space will facilitate a mix of passive and active recreational features such as play spaces for children and families, resilient gardens, dog runs and pet play areas, and outdoor seating. The Gowanus Forward property owners are committing an average of over 25% of their sites to open space.

Will the Canal be accessible from the new open space?

Yes. Zoning text includes incentives to create boating infrastructure and allows for access points for kayakers and canoeists to enter the waterway. The required waterfront esplanade will create a natural connection between upland streets and the Canal.

What will go in on the ground floor?

Under the rezoning, some of the new buildings will be required to have ground floor retail. Gowanus Forward is committed to incorporating a mix of retail, restaurants, art, and community facilities in their buildings. The ground floor and local streetscape will serve as a welcoming entryway to the new open space and revitalized Gowanus Canal.

Will the rezoning create development along the waterfront that cuts off access to the open space?

The City-led rezoning includes design requirements and density limitations that will dramatically increase access and connectivity to the waterfront.  The design guidelines require a mix of building heights, shapes and setbacks that will preserve views and ensure that light and air reach down to the canal and local streets. At 100 feet in width, the Gowanus Canal is wider than most streets and avenues—roughly the width of larger throughfares like Flatbush Avenue or Manhattan’s Park Avenue—and, combined with setbacks, the new buildings will not overshadow the Canal or disrupt a sense of openness and character at the street level. Additional green spaces and retail on the streets leading to the Canal will help create welcoming pathways to the water.

What does environmental remediation do?

Environmental remediation is an expensive and time-consuming process that addresses hazardous materials left behind from the neighborhood’s industrial past. The creation of publicly accessible open space, retail, and housing cannot move forward until remediation of a site is complete. Development sites will be investigated for contaminants under the guidance of the New York City Office of Environmental Remediation as part of the NYC Environmental Review Program for Hazardous Materials, Air Quality, and Window/Wall Noise Attenuation. Remediation plans will be designed on a site-by-site basis to protect public health and the environment and must undergo a rigorous formal review by  City and State agencies in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA).  

Gowanus Forward owners will be responsible for investigation and remediation, following strict government protocols for appropriate remediation, and securing the necessary government approvals before buildings can be completed and occupied. Government regulators – not landowners or developers – will actively coordinate and oversee the remediation efforts and will be the sole decision-makers as to when buildings are safe to complete and occupy.

Common throughout the city, environmental remediation is currently underway at Willets Point in Queens and has been conducted at Sugar Hill and in East New York, among other significant development projects.

What measures are being taken to protect the neighborhood and the new buildings from the threat of rising sea levels?

The City’s building code requires that new buildings must be able to withstand flooding from major storms today and well into the future. Buildings along the Canal will be required to comply with new, more stringent City standards for resilient development through measures such as the use of flood-resistant materials, raising building systems above the flood plain, and strategies to support neighborhood-wide water management, such as the detention and controlled release of stormwater. The waterfront esplanade also will incorporate strategies to assure resilience, including landscapes that can withstand flooding, and use of resilient materials (this may include green infrastructure such as sponge parks and plantings that thrive in such environments). These protections do not currently exist and constitute yet another way in which the rezoning will improve the neighborhood overall.

Other neighborhood rezoning efforts have led to residential displacement. Will that happen in Gowanus?

While other rezonings in the city have focused on densely populated residential areas, Gowanus has a largely industrial past. Within the Gowanus rezoning area, most new buildings will be constructed along the waterfront, which today consists of mostly large, underutilized sites.

None of the Gowanus Forward members’ properties are currently used for residential purposes. Thus, creating new housing on these waterfront sites will not result in any residential displacement, but instead will increase the below-market housing stock. The new buildings on the waterfront are anticipated to include over 70% of the 3,000 below-market housing units that will be created in the rezoning.

Gowanus also has a higher median household income than Brooklyn overall, unlike most other rezoning areas. As a result, the rezoning will provide new affordable housing opportunities for thousands of New Yorkers, creating a more equitable and diverse neighborhood.

Will this rezoning impact existing NYCHA housing?

Yes, and in a helpful way. The rezoning will not displace any existing NYCHA residents or housing complexes. Instead, thanks to the work of the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice and our City Councilmembers, the City has committed $200 million to fund comprehensive in-unit renovations of all apartments at Gowanus Houses (1,134 units) and Wyckoff Houses (528 units).

“Rather than fuel displacement and gentrification in a low-income, working-class neighborhood, the rezoning would be a force for racial and economic integration in a wealthy, white one. That’s the opposite of gentrification.”

— Opinion: How the Gowanus Rezoning Could Push NYC Forward on Racial Equity, by Michelle de la Uz, Brad Lander and Barika Williams, September 21st, 2021, in City Limits

Why do we need more housing?

For years, New York City has faced an affordable housing shortage. Building new affordable housing will be a critical component of the city’s economic recovery and the creation of 3,000 below-market housing units that will be developed as a result of the Gowanus rezoning will provide housing security for thousands of New Yorkers. New York City is expected to reach a population of nine million people by 2040. We must be strategic about how we plan for the necessary infrastructure to accommodate this population growth, including expanding the affordable housing pipeline and remediating land that has historically been uninhabitable.

Will the housing remain permanently affordable?

Yes. The 3,000 below-market apartments built as a result of the rezoning – more than 70% of which will be on the waterfront – are legally required to be permanently affordable.