[Photo courtesy of turkeyheart/flickr]

If you are going to pay attention to what is happing in Brooklyn that is of critical importance, you have to pay attention to rezoning plans. Today’s Metro reports that plans for a rezone of more than 200 blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant begin a public review process by the Department of City Planning today. Specifically:

The city developed the plan at the behest of Brooklyn’s Community Board 3, which wants to preserve the neighborhood’s historic brownstone blocks while increasing incentives for affordable housing and “medium density” growth along Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue, according to City Planning officials.

“We’re interested in the fact that the brownstones have been here a long time,” said Joyce Turner, president of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board Inc., a local non-profit that’s been active for nearly 70 years. “And we want the new properties to fit in with existing properties. There has to be consistency. … We need to put some controls on this.”

More detail within the story.