Council District 39 Candidate Briget Rein Calls For A Moratorium On Gowanus Rezoning

Bravo to Briget Rein, City Council Candidate for the 39th District in Brooklyn, for supporting Voice Of Gowanus' call for a moratorium on the Gowanus rezoning currently being proposed by New York City's Department of City Planning. By doing so, Briget is the first candidate to do so.

In a letter to Community Board 6's Chairman Peter Fleming, Briget expressed concern that the community has not been given adequate information regarding the pollution of the 80-block area slated to be rezoned for residential use. She also points out that residents will not be able to get a fair Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) during the Covid pandemic, as the online webinar format robs the community of an opportunity to truly engage and have their voices heard.

As a local political activist, Community Board 6 member and United Federation of Teachers government liaison to the New York City Council, Bridget has led many social campaigns to enhance labor initiatives throughout Kings County and New York City. 

Please join Briget on the Carroll Street Bridge on Carroll Street and the Gowanus Canal for a discussion on the Gowanus rezoning on December 3, 2020 at 12 pm. (Wear masks, of course.)  

Below is Briget's letter to CB6.

November 20, 2020 

Community Board 6 

Peter D. Fleming, Chair 

250 Baltic Street 

Brooklyn, New York 11201 

Dear Chairman Fleming: 

Progress and development of our community is a positive side effect of growth. However, the current plans concerning the Gowanus Rezoning Project undercuts the current state of the Gowanus community and the needs of residents. Without in person community meetings where concerned citizens can have their voices heard, the city is leaving out the voices of our citizens regarding a life-changing project. 

The first step of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) is the public review of applications affecting the land use of the city. This meeting will be the first time the community has the chance to raise their voices about the project. Because of the pandemic, this is currently an impossibility. Because of this, I am requesting a pause in the process in order to get the Environmental Protection Agencys’ report out to the community. 

Alongside many in the community, we are asking for a moratorium because of the lack of an in person meeting and because there is currently a severe lack of information available to us. The EPA has already expressed grave concern over the city’s ability to deal with the overflow expected to result from this rezoning project. Without the accessibility of the EPA’S report to community members there is no avenue for citizens to be educated about the project. 

The area under consideration for the rezoning project is a FEMA flood zone, and on top of this issue, the city is promising affordable housing on the most polluted land in the Gowanus Canal area. Lastly, the ability to discuss other important issues surrounding the rezoning project such as workforce housing, and bringing the labor movement together as a voice in this project must be prioritized.

The city charter promises each community the same process through ULURP. The charter also makes it clear that the land use process of rezoning requires in person meetings within the district at a place of public assembly. This is how every neighborhood has gone through this process since the 1970s. This would be the first time a community being rezoned would be without the same rights as every other community. 

For these reasons, I am calling for a moratorium on the Gowanus Rezoning project in order to ensure all citizens are heard, and the community receives every opportunity others received prior to this project. 

In solidarity, 

Briget Rein 

CC: 

Mayor Bill de Blasio 

Congressman Hakeem Jefferies 

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez 

Borough President Eric Adams 

Council Member Brad Lander 

Council Member Steven Levin 

State Senator Brian Kavanaugh 

State Senator Elect Jabari Brisport 

Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon 

Assembly Member Robert Carroll 

District Leader Jesse Pierce 

District Leader Josh Skaller

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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?

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Gowanus Confidential! We Foiled Councilman Brad Lander's Correspondence About The Rezoning

Who, me?

Councilman Brad Lander of the 39th Council District

3D model of a fully built-out Gowanus after rezoning

by New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) students

During the past few years, I have attended many of the public meetings pertaining to the proposed rezoning of the area around the Gowanus Canal. Those include the Bridging Gowanus community meetings hosted by our Council Member Brad Lander together with Council Member Stephen Levin and other elected representatives, which were a sham in my book.

The more Brad Lander tried to pretend that he would make sure that "plans for growth [for Gowanus] are grounded fully in the public interest, and will achieve our shared goals", the more it appeared to the community that the rezoning was a huge giveaway to developers and that certain organizations had a seat at Brad's table to influence the rezoning long before Bridging Gowanus started.

Increasingly, I was curious to see what was being discussed about the proposed Gowanus rezoning  between our elected officials and government figures...and a very specific developer: Jared Kushner

So, like any good citizen and community activist, I worked with some friends to request Brad Lander's email correspondence pertaining to the Gowanus rezoning under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).  And for good measure, we foiled some more of our elected officials and government figures.

The requests were sent in May 2019. In all, we foiled the email correspondence pertaining to the rezoning of:

Councilmember Brad Lander***
Catherine Zinnel , Brad Lander's former Deputy Chief of Staff 

Rachel Goodman, Brad Lander's Chief Of Staff
Councilmember Steve Levin
Benjamin Solotaire, Steve Levin's North Brooklyn Community Organizer
NYC Department of City Planning***(partial)
Winston von Engel, Director, NYC DCP Brooklyn Office***(partial)
Jonathan Keller, NYC DCP in charge of Gowanus rezoning
Community Board 6
Mike Racioppo CB6 manager

Here is the specific FOIL request that was sent out:

To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the New York State Freedom of Information Law (1977 N.Y. Laws ch. 933), I hereby request the following records:
1. Correspondence between ........... and each of the following individuals, officials, agencies, and companies regarding the proposed Gowanus rezoning and regarding the Gowanus Places Study:
Mayor DeBlasio
Alicia Glen, Former Deputy Mayor under deBlasio
Councilmember Brad Lander
Brad Lander (private citizen, private email)
Councilmember Steve Levin
Steve Levin (private citizen, private email)
Jonathan Butler NYC DCP
Winston Von Engel NYC DCP
Peter Fleming CB6 Chair
Mark Shames CB6 Land Use Chair
Mike Racioppo CB6 Manager
Salvatore "Buddy" Scotto, Long Time proponent of a Gowanus rezoning
Debra Scotto CB6 Member
Michelle de La Uz, City Planning Commissioner/ Executive Director, Fifth Avenue Committee
Andrea Parker, Executive Director, Gowanus Conservancy
Sabine Aronowsky, Fifth Avenue Committee

and

2. Any correspondence between Catherine Zinnel of Council Member Brad Lander's office and each of the following individuals a) regarding the proposed Gowanus rezoning, b) regarding the Gowanus Places Study, and c) regarding Brooklyn properties at 169 Third Street, 175-185 Third Street, and 201-225 Third Street.
Jared Kushner
SL Green
Kushner Companies
LIVWRK, Kushner's original partners for Gowanus project
Asher Abehsera, founder of  Livwrk
Aaron Lemma, co-founder of  Livwrk
Robert Schiffer, (Managing Director at SL Green)
Aby Rosen (developer, buyer of former Kushner site)
RFR Realty (Aby Rosen's development firm)

Why Jared Kushner and his associates? Because the developer and son-in-law of President Trump purchased one of the largest sites along the Gowanus in 2014. This prompted Councilman Brad Lander to declare on WNYC in 2017 that it would feel wrong to vote for the rezoning if it meant "enriching the White House senior adviser while he’s got authority over the canal. That feels ethically tainted in a way I don’t see how I could do and how I could ask my colleagues to do."

This seems like a strange statement from Lander,  since we kept on hearing that Lander was trying to convince other property owners on the same block as Kushner's property at 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street to join forces to spot-rezone the entire block to residential ahead of the larger rezoning.. Obviously, things were taking too long for Kushner Companies

In 2017, Kushner Companies and SL Green Realty sold their interest to Aby Rosen's development company RFR Realty. We found email correspondence between the Department of City Planning and a real estate law firm hired by RFR..  Surely it seems plausible that there may have been an exchange of emails between Kushner Companies, RFR and Brad Lander over the years..

After several delays and numerous requests for updates, just a few foil requests came back 7 months later. We did receive the emails of Lander and his former aid, Catherine Zinnel, as well as the emails of Levin staffer Ben Solotaire. We only received partial documents from City Planning.
Community Board 6 and its manager Mike Racioppo ignored our Foil request altogether. We have to see what to do about that with the state's Committee on Open Government.

What emerged...amidst lots of redaction...was very interesting.

Heavily redacted email between Brad Lander and New York City Hall 5/25/2018

The Lander emails from his official Council account did not say much. In fact, there really were not many emails included in the 630 page file sent to us, as many of the pages contained unnecessary printed presentations by the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Gowanus Conservancy, sometimes twice or three times.  The lack of emails seemed strange given how long and intimately Lander has been pushing the Gowanus rezoning. How could there not be far more emails about this massive public project that he has been advancing for years?  

And another question arose as we compared the Lander emails to those of his former staff member Catherine Zinnel and  those of the Department of City Planning.

While we had FOILED the same topics for everyone, the email records returned for Zinnel and DCP were more extensive and contained many additional emails not contained in the Lander email returns.

As we perused these emails, we began to notice a pattern. Lander's staffer (and often Council Member Levin staffer Ben Solotaire) would be in regular communication with a number of local organizations discussing the proposed Gowanus rezoning. In particular, Michelle de La Uz of the Fifth Avenue Committee and Andrea Parker from the Gowanus Conservancy seemed to have quite a correspondence and many meetings with our elected officials.

The Gowanus Conservancy's mission is to facilitate "the development of a resilient, vibrant, open space network centered on the Gowanus Canal."  Though it appears to be an environmental grassroots organization, the Conservancy has accepted money from Gowanus developers and has positioned itself to become the steward of the public waterfront parkland that developers will have to create as part of the rezoning.

And of course, Brad Lander previously served as Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee from 1993 to 2003. He has pushed for a Gowanus Rezoning since his time at FAC, so it is not surprising that he continues to have a close relationship with this not-for profit organization. In addition, FAC is one of the developers of Gowanus Green, the large development planned for Public Place that requires the rezoning to take place in order to proceed
Notice the word 'confidential' in the subject line of the email below.

The emails as a whole show that FAC, GCC and their joint Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition For Justice  are in lockstep with Lander, doing his bidding lest they lose their funding source. 
One noteworthy exception is highlighted below. It shows Brad Lander complaining to De La Uz about a quote by her staff in a City Limit article, which he  obviously disagreed with.

Emails, like the one below show that for years, the Fifth Avenue Committee had privileged seats at the table with Council Members Lander and Levin, as well as with City Planning to discuss Gowanus.

Another question is: Has Brad Lander evaded Public Records Laws to push the Gowanus Rezoning?

Most of the documents block out Brad Lander's email address.  This seems strange since his address surely is part of the public record. Even stranger is that some other correspondence only shows his address blocked out on a long list of email addresses. Given the context, the only email address that would make sense there, as the email chains hashed through various strategies about the proposed rezoning....is Brad Lander's personal email.

Below is an email from the Brooklyn office of the Department of City Planning addressed to Lander's personal Gmail account. (Note that we crossed out Lander's Gmail account in blue since we believe his personal email was left un-redacted by mistake)

And then there is this one, sent by Catherine Zinnel from a .com address to brad, also at a .com address. It is likely that both used www.landerfornyc.com, Lander's campaign web site. Note that she nevertheless uses her official council staffer title in the signature block of her email.

It is very clear from the FOIL documents received, that Lander was involved in many aspects of strategy and negotiation regarding the proposed rezoning. For years now, the Fifth Avenue Committee has enjoyed privileged, special access to the Council Members, their staff members, and the Department of City Planning. It is fair to say that FAC had an outsize role in planning a rezoning that: a) they would benefit from as private developers of the Public Place site, and b) they would have a hand in getting through because one of their leaders is on the City Planning Commission.

On more than one occasion, Lander tried doing so outside the confines of his official email account.

This obviously raises more questions: What other groups or developers did Lander meet with over the years to discuss Gowanus? What deals were cut? What has Brad Lander been doing with his official position that he has worked to keep from the public eye? What else don't we know that is hidden in Brad Lander's personal emails - that will nevertheless have a major impact on thousands of people if the proposed Gowanus rezoning goes through? 

Before we embark on this massive rezoning, we should know the answers to all these questions, no?

We are still working through the reams of FoIL documents ourselves, but please email me if you would like to see the entire trove for yourself.

Additional reading:

Feel Betrayed By Councilman Brad Lander Yet Regarding The Proposed Gowanus Rezoning? We Do!

Behold Landersville!: What Gowanus May Soon Look Like If The Neighborhood Rezoning Becomes Reality

Landersville: Councilman Brad Lander Is Still Promising A Gowanus Rezoning That He Can't Possibly Deliver

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Gowanus Up-Zoning Watch: City Planning To Attend CB6's Land Use Committee For Q & A Tomorrow Evening

Pardon Me For Asking will try hard to keep the community informed on important meetings or hearings as the proposed Gowanus  neighborhood rezoning
I urge everyone to make every effort to attend, since the future of our neighborhood is at stake.

******

The New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) will return to Community Board 6's Land Use Committee tomorrow night, this time to answer questions from committee members regarding the Gowanus Draft Zoning Proposal. You may remember that the previous CB6 Land Use meeting on March 1 was set aside so that the community got to voice their comments to DCP on this matter.

The Draft Zoning proposal is an upzoning of the area, which calls for 22 story buildings along the canal, and close to 30 stories on Public Place, the City-owned site along Smith Street near 5th Street.

The proposal almost doubles the density of what had been planned for the area in 2008. Despite the participation of local residents in Councilman Brad Lander's Bridging Gowanus visioning process, this re-zoning plan guarantees few of the things that the community really cared about: artists lofts, maker spaces and parks.

How exactly the area will accommodate thousands of new residents when our infrastructure is already at a breaking point remains unclear.
The plan offers no contract with the community that would truly guarantee us new schools, new investments in our sewers, or increased subway service.
It does guarantee years of construction and a radical change to Gowanus and surrounding neighborhoods like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens.

The Community Board will have a huge role in rezoning Gowanus, since its members will vote on supporting it or not.

The members represent all of us and we should remind them of that fact by attending CB6 meetings where the rezoning is discussed.

So please be there tomorrow.

CB6 Landmarks and Land Use Committee Meeting

6pm

P.S. 133 

610 Baltic Street (Between 4th& 5th Avenue)

Brooklyn NY 11219

Related reading:

Feel Betrayed By Councilman Brad Lander Yet Regarding The Proposed Gowanus Rezoning? We Do!

Same As It Ever Was In Gowanus: It Is Clear That New York City Plans To Allow New Housing First, Deal With Extra Sewage Later. 

Read more

Feel Betrayed By Councilman Brad Lander Yet Regarding The Proposed Gowanus Rezoning? We Do!

Community Board 6's Chair Peter Fleming

CB6's Land Use Committee Chair Mark Shames

NYC Department of City Planning's Gowanus Project Manager Jonathan Keller

NYCHA resident and Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition For Justice member Karen Blondel

One of the local residents addressing concerns about rezoning

Representatives of New York City Department of City Planning (DCP)'s Brooklyn office presenting the Gowanus Draft Zoning Proposal to Community Board 6's Land Use Committee last night.

The entire meeting and presentation can be accessed on You Tube here.


Dear Neighbors,
Do you remember back in 2008, when the Department of City Planning worked on the first Gowanus rezoning study?  Back then, the City was pushing for buildings that rose approximately as high as the Lightstone development at 363-365 Bond Street adjacent to the canal, which moved ahead under a special spot rezoning from manufacturing to mixed-use, though the overall rezoning of the area was halted when the EPA declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site in 2010.

To many in the neighborhood, the Lighstone development is all wrong for this FEMA Flood Zone evacuation area. Shortly after Hurricane Sandy flooded basement and streets in Gowanus in 2012, Councilmember Brad Lander urged the developer Lightstone Group to withdraw its plans to build its complex.

In a December 2012 letter to David Lichtenstein, the CEO of Lightstone, our Councilman wrote:
“I believe it would be a serious mistake for you to proceed as though nothing had happened, without reconsidering or altering your plans, and putting over 1,000 new residents in harm’s way the next time an event of this magnitude occurs.”

Yet the 700-unit Lightstone complex, which rises to 12 stories was built, hundreds of residents moved in, and in the past few years, Brad Lander has been pushing for the Gowanus rezoning to resume.

In 2013, together with several other local elected officials, Lander's office launched Bridging Gowanus, "a community planning process to shape a sustainable, livable, and inclusive future for the Gowanus neighborhood-in the face of ongoing change, the Superfund clean-up, and real estate pressure."

Over a few years, hundreds of community stakeholders gave hundreds of hours of their time to take part in Bridging Gowanus on the promise that this visioning process would provide them with a real chance to jointly shape a vision for the future of the neighborhood and would inform the NYC Planning Department of the wishes of the community.

Many were shocked when the final 'visioning' report falsely claimed that the community was open to high rises from 8 to 18 stories to achieve the goals set forth by Bridging Gowanus.  In reality, most residents thought that the worse case scenario for the neighborhood were more 12-story buildings like Lighstone.

To Lander, higher buildings are a trade off for providing more parkland, more schools, more affordable housing and protection of manufacturing zones in Gowanus.  "We did ask people to think hard of the tradeoffs that are necessary," Brad Lander commented. "These kinds of investments and achieving the level of preservation we just talked about costs a lot of money."

By the time the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) was commissioned to create a framework for a 'sustainable, inclusive, mixed-use neighborhood", the building density in the area had increased again. Along 4th Avenue, the framework called for 22 story buildings, though thankfully, it called for a "moderate" scale" along the canal.

That was not enough for investors and developers, who immediately cried foul. The density mentioned in the Framework did not "allow enough density along the canal to offset what they say will be the high cost of building on those sites," despite the fact that most landowners have or will clean up their polluted parcels under the New York State Brownfield Clean-up Program, which offers highly lucrative tax  breaks and tax credits, which are paid by taxpayers.

It appears that real estate pressure did have a huge influence on City Planning.
Last night, DCP's Project Manager for the Gowanus rezoning, Jonathan Keller, presented the agency's  recently released Gowanus Draft Zoning Proposal to the community.

The proposal now calls for approximately 22 story buildings along the canal,  and close to 30 stories on Public Place, the City-owned site along Smith Street near 5th Street.

Councilman Lander's response to the ever increasing proposed density?
“I know that not everyone is excited about the idea of new residential and commercial development at heights taller than the surrounding brownstone neighborhoods, but I genuinely believe we are on the way to getting the balance right.”  (Brooklyn Eagle)

Most residents seemed shocked last night. This proposal almost doubles the density of what had been planned for the area in 2008.  Despite the participation of local residents in the Bridging Gowanus visioning process, this re-zoning plan guarantees few of the things that the community really cared about: artists lofts, maker spaces and parks.

How exactly the area will accommodate thousands of new residents when our infrastructure is already at a breaking point remains unclear.

The plan offers no contract with the community that would truly guarantee us new schools, new investments in our sewers, or increased subway service.

It does guarantee years of construction and a radical change to Gowanus and surrounding neighborhoods like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens.

Many in the community gave Brad Lander the benefit of the doubt when he promised us a better, more inclusive planning process, one that would lead to a better rezoning.

Instead, it is leading us to one that seems driven by developers and politicians, which in this City is business as usual.

I hope people will remember as he prepares to run for New York City Comptroller in the 2021 election.

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Third Street Bridge In Gowanus To Close Intermittently For Repair This Tuesday

The notice above comes from the New York City Department Of Transportation via Community Board 6.
The Third Street Bride in Gowanus will be closed intermittently in each direction on Tuesday, February 2nd from 9 am to 4 pm for needed post-Sandy repair work.
Delays may result, so you may want to avoid the area during those hours. Use the Carroll Street Bridge or the 9th Street Bridge if you can. And, of course,  allow extra time if you need to cross the canal on Tuesday.



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9th Street Bridge Lane Closing From Monday Through Thursday Next Week

Community Board 6 just sent out the notice above from the NYC Department Of Transportation regarding lane closings on the 9th Street Bridge in Gowanus next week.  From Monday October 5 through Thursday, October 8th the eastbound lane of the Bridge will be closed.
On Tuesday, October 6th, the westbound lane will be closed.
All work will take place from 10 am to 1 pm.
So allow extra time if you cross the bridge during your commute.


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Organic Waste Collection To Start In Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gowanus, And Red Hook This Fall

If you, like me, have faithfully saved your food scraps and brought them to the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket for composting every Sunday morning for the past few years, you will be very excited by this news.
Being 'green' will be a lot easier starting this fall, when the NYC Department of Sanitation is expanding its organic collection into our neighborhood.  This means that we will all soon have a brown collection bin in front of our house, which will be emptied by Sanitation twice a week.

From a recent announcement by Community Board 6:
This Fall, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia Waterfront, Gowanus, Red Hook and North Park Slope will start to receive a twice weekly organic waste sanitation collection which includes food scraps, food-soiled paper, and leaf and yard waste. Central and South Park Slope began receiving this service since Spring 2014.

How will it work?
Starting October 1st, the Department of Sanitation will deliver brown organics collection bins and starter kits to all single family homes and residential buildings up to nine units.

Participating is easy:
Collect food scraps and food-soiled paper in your kitchen.
Place food scraps into your brown organics bin.
Set out brown organics bin for DSNY collection on your normal trash schedule. Set out extra yard waste next to the brown bin in lawn and leaf bags or unlined containers.
Why participate?
Collecting food scraps and yard waste helps us limit greenhouse gas emissions, achieve zero waste goals, make compost, a valuable soil amendment for gardening and agriculture, and generally contribute to a cleaner, greener City.

We hope that everyone will take full advantage of this expanded service. Interested in how the existing program is going? Sanitation put out a series of three reports on their organics collections program which you may find interesting.

Sanitation representatives will be presenting their expansion plans to our Environmental Protection Committee at their next upcoming meeting on Monday, September 28th if you'd like to learn more about this. Check our calendar for committee meeting details. You can also visit nyc.gov/organics.

According to the NYC Department of Sanitation, Organic waste accounts for about 31% of all waste generated by residents in New York City. Let us hope that the program will soon be available city-wide.


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Citibikes Are Coming To Our Neighborhood: Help Plan For The System

The New York City Department Of Transformation will be hosting a Community Board 6 Bike Share Public Planning Workshop on Thursday, June 11th at 7 pm at PS 58 in Carroll Gardens.
Come to find out about the program and help DoT plan for expansion of Citibike into CB6 for the system here in our neighborhood.

The meeting is co-sponsor by Council Members Brad Lander, Carlos Menchaca, Ydanis Rodriguez, Borough President Eric Adams, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, Brooklyn Community Board 6, Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association, Cobble Hill Association, Park Slope Civic Council, and Park Slope Neighbors.



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Noisy Bar Keeping You Awake? CB6 To Host Meeting On Rules Governing Eating And Drinking Establishments

As the weather has warmed up in the last few weeks, many local residents have had to close their windows and take out the ear plugs. All along commercial strips like Smith Street, Court Street, and 5th Avenue, restaurants and bars have swung open their doors and are infringing on their neighbors' right to a good night's sleep.

The proliferation of drinking establishments has certainly aggravated the problem in our mostly residential neighborhoods.

To help clarify the rules and regulations governing eating and drinking establishments, Community Board 6 is addressing the complaints from residents by hosting an informational meeting. Read the information below.

Brooklyn Community Board 6

CB6 Restaurant and  Bar FAQs

An Informational Meeting

Would you like to better understand the rules and regulations governing restaurants and bars in our district? Representatives from the State Liquor Authority (SLA), City agencies and local precincts will be on hand to answer any questions in respect to:

• noise
• garbage
• smoking
• backyard usage
• sidewalk cafe
• and other related issues

DATE: Tuesday, May 26, 2015
TIME: 6:00 pm
PLACE: Brooklyn Community Board 6
250 Baltic Street, Auditorium



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9th Street Bridge Over Gowanus Will Be Closed Nightly Till October 2015

Craig Hammerman of Community Board 6 just sent around the following notice regarding the temporary nightly closing of the 9th Street Bridge.

"We were just advised that the 9th Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal will be closed nightly from April 24 through October 19 due to construction work that the MTA contractor has to perform on the Culver Viaduct above the bridge.
For the entirety of this closure the B61 will be detoured nightly (10pm-6am) between 2nd Avenue and Smith Street. The westbound B61 will take 2nd Avenue to Hamilton Avenue to Smith Street then rejoin the route at 9th Street. The eastbound B61 will take Smith Street to 3rd Street to 3rd Avenue then rejoin the route at 9th Street."




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Repair To Carroll Street Bridge Mechanisms Damaged During Sandy To Begin

Good news! It looks as though NYC Department Of Transportation is moving ahead with the much needed repair to the Carroll Street Bridge, which was damaged by floodwater.

Craig Hammerman, Community Board 6's district manager sent out the email below regarding a temporary closing of the bridge this morning to test a temporary operating system to open and close the bridge.

Craig writes:
"The Carroll Street Bridge’s mechanical systems were damaged during Superstorm Sandy. The NYCDOT Division of Bridges is beginning the project to repair the damaged mechanisms of the bridge over this Spring and Summer.
A Temporary Operating System has been installed and the NYCDOT will be testing this system tomorrow, Wednesday April 1, 2015 after 10:00am.

The test should take no longer than 15 minutes and has been scheduled during non-rush hours; disruption to the traffic on Carroll Street will be very temporary."

The retractable bridge, which swings out horizontally to open for barge traffic, was built in 1889 and landmarked in 1987.  It is the oldest of the four remaining retractable bridges left in this country. Below is a photo of the bridge from 1912.

(from the Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library)

Incidentally, i just received the photo below from friend and reader Elizabeth Kenney of the Third Street Bridge, which was open today. She writes: "It is the 3rd Street Bridge, taken from 3rd Avenue side just now at 2 Pm today. It is up for the first time since Sandy."

Obviously, DoT is working on that bridge as well.

(photo credit: Elizabeth Kenney)

Elizabeth also sent along a beautiful old photo of the bridge that is included in a photo exhibit at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's shop in Grand Central. Thanks for sharing it, Elizabeth.

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