The three Councilmembers who represent communities surrounding the Gowanus Canal have united to demand several key amenities in the city’s planned redevelopment of the historically industrial area, demanding affordable housing and low-rise buildings.
Councilmembers Bill DeBlasio (D–Park Slope), David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights) and Sara Gonzalez (D–Red Hook) asked Planning Commission Chairwoman Amanda Burden to ensure that any zoning change near the Lavender Lake include restrictions on building heights and mandated affordable housing, particularly on the city-owned “Public Place” site that will be cleaned and redeveloped as part of the rezoning effort.
“The significant majority of units on the [Public Place] site must be affordable to a range of low-, moderate-, and middle-income families, with a substantial set-aside for affordable senior housing,” the pols’ letter to Burden stated. As a carrot to developers, all three said they supported “greater density” if 30 percent of the units were available at below-market-rate prices.
Current plans for the rezoning and transformation of the oil-seeped land that surrounds the Gowanus include canal-front esplanades and parks. But the allied Councilmembers issued a laundry list of demands beyond affordable housing, such as improvements to several area parks.
The letter also included a surprising bonus for Carroll Gardens residents, many of whom have been pleading with Burden’s agency to restrict the heights of new buildings in their neighborhood.
With this demand, the three lawmakers showed they are siding with some Carroll Gardens residents, who have called for their neighborhood to be downzoned to prevent high-rise buildings as part of the ongoing Gowanus Canal-zone rezoning.