RESOURCES
This groundbreaking marks an important alignment among city leadership and the EPA to get these projects on track after Gowanus was categorized as a Superfund site in 2010.
Council Members Brad Lander and Stephen Levin, leaders of Brooklyn Community Board 6, and members of the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice, announced this morning that they have reached consensus with the de Blasio Administration on “Points of Agreement” (POA) that ensure the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning will meet community goals.
Regional Plan Association’s (RPA) press release congratulating City Council Zoning and Franchises Subcommittee and Land Use Committee for approving the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning and calling on the full City Council to do the same, with statements from RPA, 32BJ, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, New York Housing Conference, and Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC).
Brendan Cheney of New York Housing Conference’s (NYHC) comments to the Brooklyn Borough President regarding the Gowanus Rezoning.
Regional Plan Association’s (RPA) comments to the Brooklyn Borough President regarding the Gowanus Rezoning.
Press release from Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), Arts Gowanus and the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation (SBIDC) which accompanied a FAC court filing in support of moving forward with certification.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) response to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) about statements regarding the Citizens Gas Works (Public Place) former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) site that were made by the EPA during the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group’s (CAG) December 1, 2020 meeting.
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding comments made by the EPA’s Gowanus Canal Project Manager during the Community Advisory Group’s (CAG) December 1, 2020 monthly meeting.
NEWS
The city broke ground yesterday on the first of two long-delayed sewage overflow tanks along the Gowanus Canal, preventing raw waste from spilling back into the partially cleaned Superfund site as a boom of new development begins to rise in the Brooklyn neighborhood.
By David Brand
“A dedicated task force and newly selected facilitator will be empowered to hold the city and private developers accountable to more than 50 ‘points of agreement’ drafted to secure final support for the Gowanus transformation plan, which included a pledge to fund nearby NYCHA repairs.”
By Kirstyn Brendlen
“James Lima Planning + Development has been selected as the facilitator for the Gowanus Rezoning Oversight Task Force, city officials announced Tuesday, with Principal Ben Margolis — the former head of the Southwest Brooklyn Development Corporation — serving as the head facilitator. Margolis and the company will work with the city, developers, and the community to ensure all parties are making good on the promises the city made the neighborhood.”
By Michelle de la Uz and Brad Lander
“This plan did not start in a developer’s office, or at City Hall. It started through community planning, a series of public conversations that generated core principles for what inclusive, sustainable growth in the neighborhood would require.”
By Michelle Cohen
“Randy Peers, president of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement: ‘If we are going to continue to grow as a Borough and a City, we need to encourage density in areas that can sustain it while simultaneously addressing the need for affordable housing. Increased residential density is the foundation for small business success in Gowanus.’”
By Brooklyn Eagle Staff
The “Points of Agreement” between City Hall and the Councilmembers, the result of extensive community organizing and public engagement, provides that every one of the 1,662 units in NYCHA’s Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens developments will receive a comprehensive interior modernization estimated at $200 million. The City will invest hundreds of millions more in flooding and stormwater infrastructure, parks, schools, and workforce development, and substantial funding commitments for renovations at the Pacific Branch Library ($14.7 million) and the Old Stone House ($10.95 million).
By City Limits
“New York City officials on Wednesday committed to funding roughly $200 million in renovations at a pair of Gowanus public housing complexes—part of a deal to lock in votes for a neighborhood-level rezoning from two key local lawmakers.”
Read more
By Moses Gates
“It’s always easier to do nothing than something. But doing nothing also has consequences. The opposite of moving forward with the Gowanus plan is not preserving the existing neighborhood in amber; it’s increasing flooding that slowly eats away at our infrastructure, letting our public housing crumble and abandoning efforts to clean up pollution. Instead of affordable housing and parks, we’ll see a combination of high-rent apartments and last-mile warehousing bringing more and more truck traffic to the neighborhood. It’s a future in which rents, which have increased by more than 20% in the last decade alone, continue to skyrocket due to the housing squeeze. It’s a future that adds nothing for either existing or new residents.”
by Ben Verde
“Borough President and Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams announced his support for the Gowanus rezoning on Friday, as the neighborhood-wide scheme snakes its way through the city’s land-use change process.”
Read more
By Rachel Holliday Smith
“The ‘Racial Equity Report,’ produced by Columbia urban planning professor Lance Freeman, concluded that the rezoning would likely cause Gowanus, currently one of the whitest neighborhoods in the five boroughs, to ‘much more closely match the diversity of New York City rather than the [current] population of the local area. That’s partly because, under the zoning proposal, the neighborhood could gain as many as 2,950 housing units rented at below-market-rate prices through the city’s affordable housing lottery, out of a total 8,495 newly constructed apartments.’”
By Eddie Small
“Three Gowanus property owners have come out with renderings of what they think the Brooklyn neighborhood could look like if the city’s long-anticipated rezoning of it comes to fruition. The conceptual designs for the waterfront … represent a stark contrast to the Gowanus Canal's current reputation as a notoriously polluted waterway.”
By Randy Peers, President and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
“Now more than ever, we need to move forward on major neighborhood-strengthening initiatives like the Gowanus rezoning. Projects like this will put people to work, create affordable housing when we’ve never needed it more, and support small businesses in the surrounding community that will directly benefit from the patronage of new residents and visitors to a beautiful, clean canal-front.”
By Rachel Fee, Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference
“In the proposed Gowanus rezoning, we can see the future right in front of us. The proposal is a model example of the sort of planning that, if replicated, will result in the city we aspire to create – one that overcomes rising housing costs and confronts our legacy of redlining and segregation.“
By the Daily News Editorial Board
“The canal, a federal Superfund site, is at long last getting cleaned up, and the area around it would, under the city’s plans, morph from its current low-rise industrial character into a place with 8,000 new housing units, 3,000 of them affordable, a sorely needed infusion of supply in a city overwhelmed by demand…. One reason this rezoning matters so much is that it is taking place in a neighborhood, albeit currently a low-density one, where 56% of residents are white, much higher than the 32% city average.”
By Rebecca Baird-Remba
“While the city prepares to rezone a broad swath of industrial Gowanus for mixed-use residential development, Councilman Brad Lander has pushed for a novel provision that gives developers of new residential buildings the option to set aside a small amount of space for artists, light manufacturing and community groups, he told Commercial Observer.”
By Rachel Fee, Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference
“We cannot afford more of the same when it comes to housing policy, which makes it especially encouraging to see plans to proceed in SoHo and Gowanus. The next step is to make these proposals a reality and collectively create an equitable New York that aligns with our values.”
By The New York Times Editorial Board
“New Yorkers need affordable housing in every neighborhood, not as an afterthought at the end of a long subway line. Making that a reality would go a long way toward building a fairer, healthier city.”
By the Daily News Editorial Board
“The administration is rightly pursuing rezoning in SoHo and Gowanus, and should look at ways to enable the same in other wealthier neighborhoods.”
By Hector Gonzalez, SEIU 32BJ member
“One initiative that could help is the proposed rezoning of part of the area where I work, the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. This rezoning is the first one proposed to build thousands of affordable apartments in a wealthier, majority-white neighborhood where affordable units are few and far between, as well as creating many good-paying jobs.”
By Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee; Brad Lander, City Council Member representing Brooklyn’s 39th District; and Barika Williams, Executive Director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development
“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.”
by Anna Quinn
“Proponents of the Gowanus Rezoning are warning that recent calls to hold off on the plan will delay much-needed change it could bring to the neighborhood.”
Read more