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Major Brooklyn zoning changes OK'd

By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

October 30, 2007

The City Council voted unanimously Monday to rezone 206 blocks in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

The new regulations are designed to protect the historic brownstones in the area while adding more affordable housing and greater density to Fulton Street, the main spine of the neighborhood.

"Bed-Stuy has been discovered," said Democratic Councilman Al Vann. "It's just like when Columbus discovered America, and the rush is on."

The rezoning had been called for by local residents alarmed at what they perceived as an aggressive push to build new market-rate high rises in the absence of effective controls.

"This doesn't just preserve the low-rise nature of the neighborhood, and it doesn't just add affordable housing," said council Speaker Christine Quinn, comparing the council's vote to recent rezoning of the Jamaica section of Queens. "It does both."

Many in the neighborhood were cautiously optimistic.

Joe Long, a 50-year resident of the neighborhood and owner of Birdel's Tapes and Records, said he wished the zoning addressed the needs of existing commercial tenants.

"We need to make sure minority businesses will still be in the community and be able to harvest the longevity of their time here," he said. "We can't let the conglomerates move in on us."

Joel Dabu, the executive director of the Fulton-Nordstrom United Merchant's Association, a local business group, said the area was ripe for redevelopment.

"Right now there are many properties that lay fallow or that the owner has not invested in," he said. "If all of those buildings are brought back into productive use, that would be wonderful."

Because the rezoning encompassed so many blocks, only the southern half of the neighborhood has been subject to rezoning.

"Tomorrow we start with the north," Vann said.

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Major Brooklyn zoning changes OK'd

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