Where To From Here?: Notes From Last Night's Final Bridging Gowanus Meeting

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Council Member Brad Lander

Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez

Council Member Carlos Menchaca

Councilmember Steve Levin

Charlene Nimmons, President of Wyckoff Gardens Tenants Association

Linda Mariano, member of Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus

Gowanus Resident Carl Teitelbaum

Adam, Gowanus Resident

Joseph Alexiou of Gowanus Preservation Society

This past Friday, Council member Brad Lander and Pratt Center For Community Development released the result of Bridging Gowanus, an initiative to "develop a neighborhood framework for the infrastructure and land use plan needed for a safe, vibrant and sustainable Gowanus."
Last night, Lander, together with Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and Council members Carlos Menchaca and Steve Levin, presented the framework to the public.

Bridging Gowanus has been touted as a community driven process that reflects the collective priorities of the community. The 'shared values' reflected in the framework are going to hopefully guide New York City Planning and the De Blasio Administration when a re-zoning plan for Gowanus will be put forth.

Though groups and organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee, Gowanus Alliance, Gowanus Dredgers, and Wyckoff Gardens Tenants Association expressed their approval of the framework, quite a few local residents objected to the assertion by Pratt and Lander that many in Gowanus were open to high rises from 8 to 18 stories to achieve the goals set forth by Bridging Gowanus.
The density was determined by a rather leading exercise given to residents at the public meeting in June which asked residents to add two stories to a four story building for every amenity, like school, park or art space, that would be added to the neighborhood. Those who checked off every amenity ended up with 18 story buildings.

"I doubt very much that actual Gowanus residents would like to see buildings of that height", resident Linda Mariano stated during the public comment period  last night.  She asked for a show of hand.  Only three or four people in the audience raised theirs.

Elena Conti of Pratt Institute was quick to explain that  range of height of a hypothetical 8 to 18 stories represents a range of hypothetical height.  "That is NOT a recommendation. [Bridging Gowanus] is a framework.  There is no map.  This is NOT a plan."

Some Gowanus residents expressed deep skepticism about how Bridging Gowanus can influence any future zoning plan.  This is after all, a neighborhood that has seen its fair share of broken promises.

Some residents wanted to know what the next step will be.  They also asked how our politicians will be accountable.

Gowanus resident Adam expressed this doubt best.
"There is a lot of skepticism in this room, built on experience about broken promises and generation after generation of bait-and switch in the City of New York.  There will always be pressure .  There will always be political leverage that belongs to the interest of real estate speculation and development, many of which are represented here tonight and would probably not object to 18-story buildings.  We have a unique moment in which we have progressive leadership representing us, in Brad and his colleagues in the Council, and in the support from our State and Federal representatives.  I guess the question is :  What are the strategies that our representatives are going to use to take this framework and prevent it from being something that just goes to City Planning and they say "yea, 18 stories, that sounds great", and run it through the Council and get our mayor, who supported Lightstone to support this.  Where is our leverage? How is it going to work?"

Elena Conti answered: "If this framework moves forward and the City engages the community, a very thoughtful and detailed  block by block second conversation needs to to take place. Whatever plan eventually comes forth, we need to have those more detailed conversations."

Councilman Brad Lander suggested that it would not have been smart for him and other elected officials to engage the community in a conversation about the future of their neighborhood and then to allow a zoning process that would not take the shared goals into consideration.

He reminded everyone that any re-zoning plan would first need to be approved by the City Council, which defers to the local elected in such matters.

Congressmember Nydia Velázquez added:

"We are trying to be honest, we are trying to be constructive and pro-active and not re-acting to one developer here and one developer there.  When I was told by the Bloomberg administration and the mayor himself to back off on the designation of the Gowanus Canal as a Superfund, I told him and some of the people that were pressuring me,  that I wanted the process to be determined by science and not by the mayor or any developer. I will not lend my support [to Bridging Gowanus]  if I feel in any way that the community's desire and priorities are not reflected in this process.  I can assure you."

In other words, it is important that we keep engaged, ask questions and keep our elected officials accountable.


Have you taken the time to look at the Bridging Gowanus framework?  Where you there last night? What did you think? Do you believe that the community driven process will truly have an impact on City Planning and the deBlasio administration? Let's have a real, unfiltered community conversation about our neighborhood's future.