Image Credit: NYC DOT
One year ago, in January 2020, the Expert Panel assigned by Mayor Bill de Blasio to study the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway issued its Final Report. Mayor de Blasio in 2019 appointed the seventeen-person Expert Panel* of which I was a member, following the angry rejection of New York City DOT’s plan for reconstructing the section of the BQE adjacent to Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn. City DOT presented its plan publicly September 2019. The plan caused immediate outrage. (more…)
Rendering of the new mixed-use seven-story building at 103 North 13th Street in Brooklyn. Image Credit: Albo Loberis/CPC.
City Planning Commissioners voice concern over approving too many IBIAs before knowing the impacts that such projects will have on the area. On February 27, 2019, the City Planning Commission voted to approved another Industrial Business Incentive Area (IBIA) within the Greenpoint/Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone (IBZ) of Brooklyn. This project will be the third of its kind, with 25 Kent Avenue as the first, and 12 Franklin Street as the second. This application expands the existing IBIA to include a new area comprised of six lots, located on a portion of block bounded by North 14th Street to the north, North 13th Street to the south, Berry Street to the west, and Wythe Avenue to the east. Designation as an IBIA unlocks two special permits, one to increase the maximum floor area ratio (FAR) and building envelope regulations, and another to waive parking and loading requirements. Utilizing the two special permits, the applicant will develop a new seven story building at 103 North 13th Street that will contain a mix of light industrial, retail and office space. (more…)
Image credit: Department of City Planning.
The Department of City Planning released a comprehensive plan which seeks to update zoning and other land use strategies to stimulate spaces for new jobs and economic activity in the area. On November 19, 2018, the Department of City Planning released the North Brooklyn Industry & Innovation Plan which sets land use goals and tools for businesses in the area to promote growth and expansion. The Plan is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 10-point Industrial Action Plan announced in 2015 and aims to create over 20,000 jobs in the North Brooklyn Industrial Zone, the third largest industrial business zone in the City. (more…)
City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises Meeting. October 24, 2017.
A former Pfizer factory site in South Williamsburg will be developed into a mixed-use building and public plaza. On October 31, 2017, the City Council passed the Pfizer Sites Rezoning land use actions by a vote of 38-6. The zoning map and text amendments will convert the former Pfizer factory site, currently used for parking, into a mixed-use building and plaza. The project area, totaling 182,366 square feet, is bounded by Walton Street to the north, Gerry Street to the south, Harrison Avenue to the east, and Union Avenue to the west. The proposed development includes 1,146 housing units, 62,810 square feet of commercial space, and 26,000 square feet of public open space. For CityLand’s prior coverage on the matter, click here.
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NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer. Image credit: Office of the New York City Comptroller
The report predicts that almost 50,000 residents of the affected Brooklyn neighborhoods would be priced out of neighborhood. On December 3, 2015, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer issued a report—Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and the East New York Rezoning: An Analysis—on the proposed East New York rezoning plan’s effect on housing affordability in the East New York and Cypress Hills neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The report claims while supply of housing units in the rezoned areas would go up significantly, less than thirty percent would be affordable to existing East New York and Cypress Hills residents, failing to meet goals of mitigating resident displacement. (more…)
