Long-Awaited Gowanus Rezoning Hearing Brings 6 Hours Of Testimony

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — A unique in-person and virtual hybrid public hearing about the city's controversial plan to rezone Gowanus brought six hours of testimony in Brooklyn on Thursday, kicking off a review process that had been delayed by a months-long court battle.

The hearing — led by Community Boards 2 and 6 — featured testimony from more than 100 people both remotely and at Washington Park, where the Department of City Planning was forced by court order to set up an in-person option after a lawsuit from local opponents challenged the use of remote hearings during the coronavirus crisis.

It comes nearly six months after the city first sought to start the review process in January for the plan, which proposes a series of city-led zoning changes to spur a mix of development on a once-industrial 80 blocks surrounding the Gowanus Canal.

Perhaps the largest rallying cry from those speaking at the hearing both for and against the plan was for the city to add a long-promised commitment to fund decaying New York City Housing Authority complexes in the neighborhood.

"To date, the city has made no formal commitment and that is unacceptable," said Lynn Newman of environmental group 350 Brooklyn, which is part of the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice. "Promises have been made with little to no action."

The coalition, which includes a dozen local organizations, and both City Council Members Brad Lander and Stephen Levin have said the NYCHA funding and two other GNCJ demands will determine whether they support the rezoning.

GNCJ's demands include dedicating $274 million in upfront funding for capital repairs at the Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens, creating an accountability task force to monitor promises made by the city for the rezoning and ensuring new development won't increase pollution in the Gowanus Canal, which they say has been partially met by a stormwater rule in the plan.

Pollution into the Gowanus Canal was also a mainstay for stark opponents of the rezoning.

Opponents — including groups behind the lawsuit — have long urged city officials to wait until a federally-mandated clean-up at the canal is completed before putting the rezoning in motion.

They also have decried a part of the proposal that would build affordable housing on a city-owned brownfield site known as Public Place, or Gowanus Green.

"Nothing in the...aspirational language of affordable housing, preservation of a beloved neighborhood, job creation, new infrastructure, sustainability or artistic space matters if the area remains toxic or is flooded beyond repair," said one longtime resident on Thursday.

But supporters of the rezoning maintained Thursday that the transformation of Gowanus can't wait given its contribution to the city's housing crisis.

Proponents like Lander have said the proposal could be the "opposite of gentrification" given its position as the first city-led rezoning in a whiter, wealthier community, rather than in a working-class community of color.

The rezoning aims to bring 8,200 new units of housing to the neighborhood. Of those, about 3,000 would be affordable.

"This rezoning is a chance...for you to add desperately needed new housing units," said Dan Miller. "...We cannot delay this vital new housing — we need to approve this rezoning and build, build, build."

The Gowanus rezoning will face Community Board 6's Landmarks and Land Use Committee for a vote later this month and head to the full board on June 23.

Find the full six-hour public hearing here.