There has been a great deal of confusion about the date of the rally being planned by City Council Member Bill de Blasio to support a resolution he is introducing calling for a quick rezoning of Carroll Gardens and an interim moratorium on development more than 50 feet tall. At first, it was said to […]

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City Council Member Bill de Blasio, who is introducing a resolution in the City Council calling on the Department of City Planning to fast track a downzoning of Carroll Gardens and on the Department of Buildings to impose a moratorium on developments more than 50 feet tall, is also holding a rally on January 24. […]

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This is a conceptual plan for “Transmitter Park,” which is one of the parks that was discussed at the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning meeting the other night at Warsaw. The rendering has been around for a while, but New York Shitty reports that work on the park, which would be on the […]

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The approval process for the Coney Island rezoning will be a long and technical one, including things like the upcoming Public Scoping Meeting. The session will be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 6:00 PM at Abraham Lincoln High School, which is located at 2800 Ocean Parkway. In (relatively) plain English, the meeting will […]

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Ever since the controversy over 360 Smith Street developed, Carroll Gardens residents have been pushing for fast action on a downzoning of their neighborhood, although the time frame that has been heard most often is 24 months. In response, the CORD group has been pushing for an interim moratorium on buildings more than 50 feet […]

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Supporters of the Grand Street downzoning, which turns out to include most off the members of Community Board 1, did some fast work to vote in favor of the proposal. Activists says that fast action is critical because a race is underway between developers that want to put up buildings as tall as 14-stories before […]

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One of the curiosities of Carroll Gardens is that very narrow streets such as Second Place are defined as “wide streets” because the gardens in front of the buildings are counted as being part of the width of the street. In reality, the street itself is barely wide enough for a car to make it […]

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That wall on Grand Street in Williamsburg that was being held up by an intricate bracing system after it threatened to come crashing down during demolition has been safely taken down. The wall started to collapse, possibly because of vibrations, during the takedown of the Gandar’s Building at Grand and Driggs and neighboring structures. Developers […]

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A potentially significant zoning change for small part of Williamsburg that was not included in the 2005 Williamsburg and Greenpoint rezoning is making its way through the system. The change could kill several planned tall buildings, but is also likely to spark a construction frenzy among developers trying to beat any zoning change. The rezone […]

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It appears those zoning amendments being pushed by the American Institute of Architects that could result in bulkier, taller buildings and that have upset some community activists in Brooklyn could be in for some rough going. The proposals had flown way below the radar–and still is in the sense of broad public recognition, the way […]

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It doesn’t seem to us that anything has changed dramatically, but Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden recently noted in a letter to Borough President Marty Markowitz that there will be a fairly long time line for rezoning Carroll Gardens (as per significant local sentiment) and that she can’t “commit to a precise timeframe.” She writes, in […]

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Before anyone starts picturing a Coney Island Tivoli Gardens, there are many things that need to be resolved, most significantly getting approval to de-map some city parkland so that it can go to a developer (hint: the name rhymes with, uh, hit). The “parkland” in question is the KeySpan ballpark parking lot (not that one […]

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Here are some basic details about the Coney Island rezoning proposal that was released yesterday: It will allow for the development of 6.3 million square feet of space–approximately 4.9 million square feet of residential space, 460,000 square feet of retail space and 1.4 million square feet of “enclosed amusement, entertainment retail” in addition to “amusements […]

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Yesterday’s announcement of a Coney Island zoning proposal was the very first step of what will be a very, very long process of settling land use issues. The process will run through 2009. The first public meeting on the new Coney Island zoning proposal will be held on November 19 at Auditorium, Coney Island Hospital […]

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The evidence is starting to mount that the Toll Brothers are making a move in Gowanus or, at least, starting the process of trying to sway politically-influential supporters in advance of zoning decisions. Sign #1: The closed door, invite-only meeting with Gowanus “activists” that was reported in the Brooklyn paper on Friday to preview the […]

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We got this flier via email asking us to help spread the word about the upcoming “Town Meeting” in Carroll Gardens on November 19 that should be both heavily attended and very spirited, a couple of days ago, a reader named “Brooklyn Mom” left some comments on an earlier post clarifying some things about the […]

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The City Council approved a major rezoning of Bedford-Stuyvesant yesterday. The rezone covers 206 blocks. It downzones brownstone residential blocks and upzones the commercial spine on Fulton Street. The rezone covers the southern portion of Bed-Stuy, bounded by Quincy Street and Saratoga, Atlantic and Classon Avenues. A rezone for the northern part of the neighborhood […]

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The most interesting question about Coney Island, of course, is what the city’s zoning recommendations will be and when they will be announced. They’ve been delayed repeatedly and the subject of intense speculation, given that there have been some fundamental differences between what the Coney Island Development Corporation and city planners envision in terms of […]

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Another Carroll Gardens Town Hall Meeting has been scheduled for November. The last one, on August 23, drew a large crowd to a small space at the Scotto Funeral Home. This one will be held in the auditorium at PS 58, which is on Carroll Street between Court and Smith. It is scheduled for Monday, […]

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Sunset Park is one of the many Brooklyn neighborhoods where an eventual rezoning is in play. To that end, several community meetings are coming up. They’re sponsored by Community Board 7, Council Member Sara Gonzalez and the Pratt Institute for Community Development. The first meeting is tonight (10/22) at 6:30PM. Here are details on the […]

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For the record, we will not that the Brooklyn Public Library Business Library is having a “Con Edison Power Breakfast” on Thursday (10/11) from 8:30AM-10:30AM at the Business Library, which is located at 280 Cadman Plaza West. Here’s some of what it says: Go Gowanus!New residential, retail and hotel developments are coming to the Canal. […]

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The Caroll Gardens CORD group, which created and has been circulating a petition calling for a moratorium on certain types of development in the community until rezoning can be enacted, sent out an email highlighting some comments left by people that have signed. We thought a few are worth sharing: “My husband and I are […]

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There are some things you can’t make up. It turns out that, last night, the person known as “Art Dog,” who is behind much of anti-development wall art at the Second Place exit of the Carroll Street subway stop was spotted by the police. (The signage, of course, protests the pending development at 360 Smith […]

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We got an email with a very good summary of the “Town Hall” meeting in Carroll Gardens hosted by Council Member Bill de Blasio. It was prepared by Maria Pagano of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association and we are going to excerpt some large passages: 1.) [City Council Member] Bill [de Blasio] agreed to have […]

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A standing room only crowd estimated at about 150 people turned out for a three-hour “Town Hall” meeting in Carroll Gardens last night organized by Council Member Bill de Blasio. Representatives from the Mayor’s Office and the Landmarks Preservation Commission attended, as did Assemblywoman Joan Millman. One strategy that may be emerging is the concept […]

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