- Greenpoint-Williamsburg Contextual Rezoning, Proposed Zoning used with permission of the New York City Department of City Planning. All rights reserved.
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…)
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…)
Rendering of proposed seven story building at 12 Franklin Street in Brooklyn. Image Credit: CPC/FXCollaborative Architects
The project will provide much needed office space while preserving industrial space that is characteristic of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area. On December 5, 2018, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on a proposed mixed-use development at 12 Franklin Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, located within the Greenpoint/Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone. The applicant is proposing to build a seven story, approximately 134,222 square foot building that will contain a mix of light industrial, office, and retail uses. On January 9, 2019, City Planning voted to approve the project. The application will proceed to City Council for review and approval. (more…)
Carol Clark
Carol Clark, Assistant Commissioner for Land Use and Local Governmental Affairs with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, serves as one of the agency’s vital ambassadors to the City Council. The Council must review HPD’s affordable housing development initiatives that involve the disposition of City-owned properties or the grant of tax exemptions. Clark arrived at HPD ten years ago with an extensive background in architecture, historic preservation, planning, and real estate development.
Architectural base. Clark grew up in the suburbs outside Detroit, Michigan. As a child on family trips to the city, she was captivated by the architecture of downtown Detroit’s skyscrapers. Clark’s interest in architecture led her to study architectural history at the University of Michigan. As an undergraduate, Clark became aware of the emerging efforts to restore and adaptively reuse historic buildings. When Clark learned that Columbia University offered the nation’s first graduate program in historic preservation, she knew a move to New York City would soon follow. Columbia accepted Clark, and she moved to the City in 1975. (more…)
When asked to recall projects throughout his 35-year career, land use attorney Paul Selver’s discussion becomes a vivid narrative of how the economy translates into New York City’s physical changes. Selver sees 1977 as the point when developers started looking ahead for the first time; the 1981 to 1988 development boom coincided with the economy’s exuberance and ended with the stock market crash. To Selver, his current projects, like a six-block rezoning in Coney Island, the potential five-acre reinvention of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, and the Trans Hudson Express Tunnel, New Jersey’s proposal for a second rail tunnel under the Hudson River to West 34th Street, reveal another market change. With the upper-middle class being “priced-out” of Manhattan, development moves to where housing can be built, and the need to transport commuters into Manhattan becomes greater.
Selver talked to CityLand about landing in land use, development bellwethers and potential new battles in Brooklyn.
An Extension of Childhood. Selver mentions many reasons for ending up in land use law, including a summer internship with the Lindsay Administration, a final Harvard Law School paper on affordable housing and his perceived inability to draw as well as needed to become an architect, but he ultimately sees it as a natural extension of growing up in Manhattan. Its buildings, its politics and its ever-changing streets interested him. (more…)
