Tic Tac Toe: Last Night's CB6 Gowanus Rezoning Meeting Proves Why ULURP Meetings CANNOT Be Held Virtually

Listen Up, dear Gowanus neighbors! Mayor De Blasio wants to deny us one fundamental rights provided to all residents in the City.

Last night's Community Board 6 Land Use/Landmark meeting about the Gowanus Rezoning with the Department of City Planning (DCP) was held virtually, and it became clear quickly that it was highly curated and that the board carefully chose which questions from the community they allowed. The audience could not see each other, there was seemingly no way to see who participated, and early on, board member Daniel Kummer was thrown off the call. At one point, the chat function was temporarily disabled while Councilmember Brad Lander sang the praises of the democratic planning process he provided to the Gowanus community.

About 350 people had signed into the meeting, which shows amazing engagement for an issue that will have tremendous consequences not only for Gowanus, but also Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. After all, the proposed rezoning covers 80 blocks.  However, we should insist on a moratorium on the rezoning while it is not possible to hold safe, large-scale, in-person public hearings.

Here is why:

"To become law, the rezoning needs to go through a months-long public Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a process mandated by the New York City Charter. The charter requires public hearings at several stages of the ULURP process be held in places of public assembly in a physical location. 

An attempt by the city to proceed with "virtual" public hearings for the proposed Gowanus rezoning while it is not possible to hold safe, large-scale, in-person public hearings will violate the city charter's requirements for ULURP." 

Now, City Planning knows this, CB6's Executive Board knows this, and so does Councilman Brad Lander and are on board with the certification of the rezoning in January 2021.

Therefore, last night's dog and pony show was an attempt to normalize something that is just not normal...during the Covid-19 pandemic that has turned previous assumptions about Gowanus and the rest of the City upside down.

No new information was given to residents last night.  DCP's Jonathan Keller tried his best to make the argument that Covid has made the need for 8,000 units of housing in 22 and 30 story buildings  more urgent, while we know that entire office buildings that could be converted to housing now stand vacant and apartment vacancies are at an all time high.

Councilman Brad Lander, who is currently running for Comptroller, is proposing the sale of air rights to private developers to help finance repairs to the three badly deteriorated NYCHA developments, Wyckoff Gardens, Gowanus Houses and Warren Street Houses.

To him, achieving this goal is his "fundamental bottom line" for supporting the rezoning. Without it, "it is not worthy of moving forward," he declared last night.

One does have to wonder why it would take the largest upzoning in current New York City history to bring relief to NYCHA residents.

Brad Lander has been in the New York Council for 11 years, having benefited of  the right to a third term under former Mayor Bloomberg. What has Lander done for NYCHA residents in all these long years.

And where was his side-kick Councilman Stephen Levin, whose district actually includes the three NYCHA developments. Another three-termer, he didn't even bother to log into the meeting last night.

Even NYCHA resident Karen Blondel, who is a member of the pro-Gowanus-development Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice and community organizer for the Fifth Avenue Committee, seemed peeved.

"In a comment on the sidebar, she wrote: "We need a NYCHA plan now before certification. Where is the upfront funding for Gowanus and Wyckoff?"

Where is it, indeed?