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The battle for the soul of the Gowanus ended in a stalemate.

Following three hours of heated exchanges on Thursday night about a plan by Toll Brothers to build hundreds of units of market- and below-market rate apartments on two blocks overlooking the infamous waterway, Community Board 6’s Land Use Committee chose to neither support nor oppose the project.

The hearing was the first benchmark towards a ruling on whether Toll Brothers, a development company most known for suburban McMansions, but also for Williamsburg’s Northside Piers high-rise, can get a zoning change to build its 447-unit complex along the canal between Carroll, Second and Bond streets. That project, supporters say, is the first step in the transformation of the Gowanus from a post-industrial backwater to the residential bridge between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope.

Proponents of Toll’s plans, which also call for a 40-feet wide esplanade alongside the occasionally stinky channel, community space and commercial business, believe it will spur the city and state to clean up the environmental mess left behind from the area’s manufacturing heyday.

“The city and state don’t care about the canal, because there’s no constituency there,” said committee member Debra Scotto, which is why she thinks the nearly 450 new units — with plenty more voters living inside of them — will be a catalyst for a larger neighborhood cleanup.

Other supporters, many of them unionized workers, applauded Toll’s bid on the grounds that it would create jobs for organized labor and up to 140 rental units of sub-market-rate housing.

But the opponents argued that the buildings, which would rise up to 12 stories along the canal, are too big. They also said that an influx of new residents could actually complicate a full-scale remediation effort and overwhelm the taxed sewer infrastructure, which dumps raw waste in the canal during heavy rains.

“We need more environmental safeguards,” said Roy Sloane, a Land Use Committee member.

Sloane put up a resolution calling on CB6 to oppose the Toll request for a rezoning — but his committee colleagues voted down that resolution.

The committee’s failure to reach a verdict aggravated some neighbors.

“They should have come to a decision,” said Steven Miller. “This is important. They’re wasting our time.”

©2008 Community Newspaper Group