Judge enjoined City’s redevelopment proposal for area straddling Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In December 2009, the City Council approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s redevelopment proposal for the Broadway Triangle Urban Renewal Area in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The seventeen-block urban renewal area was created in 1989 and is primarily located within Community District 1, with a six-block portion within Community District 3. CD 1 is predominately white with a large Hasidic community, and CD 3 is predominately black and Latino.  (read 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. (read 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. (read more…)