Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Carroll Gardens/ Columbia Street Contextual Rezoning Moves On To Brooklyn Borough Hall

oo


IMG_8602

Snapshot 2009-07-06 22-14-27


The Carroll Gardens/ Columbia Waterfront Contextual Rezoning is moving through the Uniform Land Use Review Process (U.L.U.R.P.) at a nice clip. It was just on June 25th that the members of Community Board 6 and the public got to review and comment on the proposed rezoning.

The next step is a public hearing at the Brooklyn's Borough President's office on:

July 14 At 4:30 Pm

Court Room, Second Floor

Brooklyn Borough Hall

209 Joralemon Street

Brooklyn, New York 11201

Mark Your Calendar!


This is great news! This long-awaited rezoning will give this community the protection it needs from out-of-scale development and will hopefully preserve the unique character of our historic neighborhood.
The NYC Department of City Planning gave this overview on the re-zoning:


At the request of Community Board 6, community and neighborhood groups, and local elected officials, the Department of City Planning proposes zoning map amendments for an approximately 86 block area of the Carroll Gardens and Columbia Street neighborhoods within Community District 6 in Brooklyn.

The rezoning area includes the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Columbia Street. The Carroll Gardens portion of the rezoning area is generally bounded by Degraw Street, Warren Street and Douglass Street to the north; Hoyt Street, Bond Street and Smith Street to the east; 3rd Street, 4th Street, 5th Street, Centre Street and Hamilton Avenue to the south; and Hicks Street to the west. The Columbia Street portion of the rezoning area consists of approximately 14 blocks bounded by Warren Street to the north, a line between Columbia Street and Van Brunt Street to the west, Hicks Street to the east and Woodhull Street to the south. The areas proposed to be rezoned are zoned entirely R6.

The rezoning proposal has been developed after extensive discussion with the Community Board, elected officials, and neighborhood residents. The rezoning responds to community concerns about recent out-of-scale development permitted under the current zoning by mapping contextual districts with height limits throughout the study area which would preserve the existing built character while allowing for new development and modest expansions where appropriate at a height and scale that is in keeping with the existing context. The rezoning would support and promote the local, vibrant retail corridors while protecting the residential character of nearby side streets.


The proposed rezoning builds upon the Department’s Carroll Gardens Narrow Streets Text Amendment which was undertaken at the community’s request and approved in 2008. That text amendment aimed to limit the size and configuration of new buildings and enlargements on certain streets with deep front courtyards which had been defined as wide streets under existing zoning and therefore permitted a higher density that was out of scale with the existing built context. The proposed rezoning of the Carroll Gardens and Columbia Street neighborhoods fulfills the Department’s commitment to return to the community with a more comprehensive set of zoning recommendations for the larger area.





For Home Page, click Pardon Me For Asking

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While there was overwhelming support for the majority of the plan, there was also VERY strong consensus against the different zoning (R6A) for the sections of Henry Street, Carroll Street, First Place and Columbia Street. This would allow buildings of up to 70 feet (60 feet plus an additional 10 after a set-back) on these streets. That would have a severe negative impact on those blocks.

This was very strongly voiced at the Community Board's public hearing on June 25, but seems to have been overlooked since then.

So, while we should support the basic plan, we should be very clear in asking them to change that specific feature.

The community has strongly stated that it doesn't want to sacrifice Clinton, Henry, First Place and Columbia.

Anonymous said...

Does this mean mega-story buildings for Gowanus? Ain't gonna look pretty to have that in the background.