Image: Courtesy of Gruzen Samton LLP

Opponents of proposed Williamsburg waterfront development wanted more affordable housing. On March 8, 2010, the City Planning Commission approved Rose Plaza on the River LLC’s proposed mixed-use development along Williamsburg’s East River waterfront at 470 through 490 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn. The project, known as Rose Plaza on the River, would provide approximately 800 residential units in three towers on a site currently occupied by storage and wholesale distribution businesses, and a lumber yard.

A 25-story tower on the site’s southern portion at the corner of Division and Kent Avenues would provide 309 residential units and 29,000 sq.ft. of retail space. South 11th Street, which currently ends at Kent Avenue, would be extended across the site providing a 60-foot wide visual corridor to the waterfront. North of the visual corridor, the developer would construct an eighteen-story building along Kent Avenue with 221 dwelling units. A 29-story building would provide 271 dwelling units on the site’s northern portion. Twenty percent of the project’s floor area would be set aside for affordable housing, which would result in 160 affordable one-, two-, and three-bedroom units located throughout the three buildings. A waterfront esplanade would include 33,188 sq.ft. of publicly accessible open space, and an underground garage would provide 496 parking spaces. (more…)

State court judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the plan the day after full Council approval. On December 21, 2009, the City Council approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s rezoning plan for the Broadway Triangle Urban Renewal Area in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The plan includes rezoning nine blocks, primarily zoned for manufacturing, to R6A and R7A districts in order to facilitate the development of 1,851 residential units, 844 of which will be marketed as affordable. Of those, 488 affordable units will be developed on 35 properties that will be disposed of by the City to private developers. Prior to the plan’s approval, HPD issued site authorization letters to the United Jewish Organizations (UJO) and the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC) to develop 181 affordable units on three assemblages of lots in the urban renewal area.

Opponents of the proposal expressed concern about HPD’s planning process and argued that the proposal would not provide enough affordable housing. The Broadway Triangle Community Coalition, a group representing more than 40 community-based organizations, said the planning process lacked transparency, noting that HPD did not use a competitive bid process when it granted site control to the UJO and RBSCC. On September 9, 2009, before the City Planning Commission approved the plan, the Coalition filed a lawsuit challenging the proposal. The Coalition claimed the proposal violated federal law because of its racially and religiously discriminatory impacts and accused the City of excluding several community groups from participating in the proposal’s planning. (more…)

Community groups opposed to rezoning proposal expressed concerns about HPD’s opaque planning process. On December 7, 2009, the City Council’s Land Use Committee modified and approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s proposal to redevelop the seventeen-block Broadway Triangle Urban Renewal Area in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The City created the Broadway Triangle URA in 1989, and HPD’s proposal included redrawing the boundaries of the urban renewal area and rezoning nine blocks in order to facilitate the development of 1,851 residential units, 844 of which would be affordable.

The rezoning would impact nine blocks generally bounded by Lynch Street to the north, Whipple Street to the south, Throop Avenue to the east, and portions of Union and Harrison Avenues to the west. The area’s northern blocks would be rezoned from M1-2, M3-1, and C8-2 to an R6A district. The area’s southern four blocks between Walton and Whipple Streets contain most of the City- and privately-owned vacant land and would be rezoned from M1-2 to an R7A district. C2-4 overlays would run along Harrison, Throop, and Union Avenues. (more…)

Additional 175 blocks of Greenpoint and Williamsburg rezoned. The City Council approved a 175-block rezoning plan for Brooklyn’s Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods. The newly rezoned area lies east of the City’s large 2005 rezoning initiative. 2 CityLand 67 (June 15, 2005). Unlike the 2005 plan, which concerned redevelopment of the manufacturing-zoned blocks along North Brooklyn’s former industrial waterfront, this new plan seeks to prevent further out-of-character construction along Greenpoint and Williamsburg’s residentially-developed inland blocks.

Originally developed in the 19th and 20th centuries as worker housing, the area has recently seen construction of 200-foot, as-of-right apartment towers along blocks characterized by small, wood-framed, two- and three-story buildings. The Department of City Planning proposed some increased residential density and commercial development, but set height and density limits along streets characterized by two- to four-story residential buildings.

The approved plan replaces the area’s predominantly R6 zoning, which covered 93 percent of the rezoning area. The new contextual zoning districts (R6A, R6B, and R7A) eliminate as-of-right development of large towers without height limits. Planning assigned the R7A zoning district, which allows a slight increase in density, to 44 blocks along the area’s major commercial corridors of Grand Street, McGuinness Boulevard, and Manhattan, Metropolitan, Union, and Bushwick Avenues. The City’s Inclusionary Housing program will now apply to these blocks, allowing developers to increase a project’s floor area in exchange for an agreement to build affordable housing. (more…)

Built as housing for working-class waterfront laborers, neighborhood remains remarkably intact. Landmarks designated the Fillmore Place Historic District on May 12, 2009. The district, primarily located on Fillmore Place between Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was privately developed during a period of rapid growth in Williamsburg during the 1850s. Although different developers likely had hands in Fillmore Place, the 29 rowhouses maintain cohesiveness in scale and design. The houses were built primarily for workers, largely German immigrants, employed along the industrializing East River waterfront.

At the March 24th hearing, a representative for Council Member Diana Reyna stated that she “enthusiastically” supported designation, and that the area was “surrounded by over-development and new construction.” Preservationists testifying that the district merited protection included Melissa Baldock of the Municipal Art Society, who stated that the 2005 Greenpoint- Williamsburg Rezoning failed to identify historic resources, and, as a result, there was “still work to be done” in the area. Historic Districts Council Executive Director Simeon Bankoff stated that Fillmore Place was important partially because it represented how “an average Brooklynite” would have lived. (more…)