How many Brooklyn neighborhoods are being downzoned, upzoned or just-plain-rezoned? A lot. In fact, the list of neighborhoods that haven’t been rezoned recently, aren’t currently being rezoned and aren’t scheduled for rezoning may be shorter than the list of ones that were/are/will be.

Zoning is generally something that is only of interest to hardcore planning and neighborhood types, but the battles over the future of Brooklyn are being decided in these technical discussions about uses, density, FARs and the like. Everything that comes after the zoning decisions is just decoration on the tree. The tree itself is determined during the rezone.

Why do we bring this up? Only because when we were looking at the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill rezoning story the other day, it struck us that we’re also dealing with make-or-break rezonings in Gowanus and Coney Island, and will likely be looking at downzonings in Dyker Heights and Sunset Park.

We’ve also recently seen major rezonings Downtown Brooklyn in 2004 and Park Slope in 2003, including the Fourth Avenue Corridor, which was upzoned and is now in the middle of building boom. The South Slope, meanwhile, was downzoned in 2005. Midwood was also both downzoned and upzoned in 2006, depending on the part of the neighborhood. Bensonhurst was rezoned in 2005 and a small part of Sheepshead Bay was rezoned in 2006. And, of course, there’s the Mother of All Recent Rezonings, the Greenpoint and Williamsburg rezoning of 2005, which is currently bearing fruit in the crop of 30- and 40-story highrises rising on the waterfront. And, we know we’re leaving a number of others in Brooklyn from the list.

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