Pratt Center for Community Development

Greenpoint-Williamsburg

Community Groups Help Reshape the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning

Years of work by a slew of community-based groups has recently led to significant new commitments for affordable housing, good jobs and open space in Greenpoint-Williamsburg. On May 11, the City Council approved the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Land Use and Waterfront Plan, an ambitious rezoning of a 175-block area.

Largely as a result of changes brought about through community organizing, the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning is a good model for balanced, equitable development. It leverages growth to insure that the benefits are shared by a wide range of people in the community, across lines of race and class. While it is not perfect, of course, it is a solid victory for community members.

The Pratt Center has been privileged to work with community groups in Greenpoint and Williamsburg over the past several decades. The community’s efforts to reshape the rezoning had its roots in:

• decades of housing and community development work (by St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation, Los Sures, and Churches United for Fair Housing)
• work to keep industry alive in the area (led by the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, and the New York Industrial Retention Network)
• efforts to fight toxic uses of the waterfront (led by Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning and Neighbors Against Garbage)
• community-based planning efforts, led by Community Board 1 to develop community-based “197-a” plans for Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

These groups were vocal opponents of the City’s initial plan, which they felt did not sufficiently reflect the community’s goals of affordable housing, open space, and the preservation of manufacturing jobs. They organized tirelessly for changes to the plan. Elected officials including Council members David Yassky and Diana Reyna, Assembly members Vito Lopez and Joe Lentol, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, and Borough President Marty Markowitz joined the community’s call for change. The Pratt Center was honored to support these groups, and especially to help those pushing for new inclusionary zoning policy to guarantee affordable housing.

While these efforts were too-little reflected in the plan that City Planning originally proposed, they ultimately made a substantial difference in what was adopted – and most of these groups (every one that has taken an official position) consider the final plan a pretty good compromise. In an ideal world, the results of community planning might directly determine what gets built. But in NYC’s real-estate driven reality, this was an appropriate public process. Community-members laid out their vision. Speculative developers laid out theirs. City Planning initiated a rezoning proposal. There were four opportunities for public testimony (at which the Pratt Center testified against the plan as it then existed every time). And elected officials ultimately negotiated substantial changes which took the plan far from what developers wanted and what City Planning originally proposed, in the direction that the community was calling for.

As a result of this remarkable advocacy, significant changes were made:

Affordable housing
The creation and preservation of the affordable housing was, in our estimation, the top priority of the largest number of community members involved. And what they won is significant: fully one-third (33%) of the housing created by this rezoning will be affordable to low- and moderate-income people (about 3,500 units out of 10,900 total, over the next 10 years). This may not seem like enough (our goal was indeed 40%). But the recent Park Slope rezoning contained zero provisions for affordable housing. And this plan also started off at 0%, when it was certified back in the summer/fall, then went to 10%, then 23%, and only finally to 33%.

The Pratt Center is a strong advocate of a mandatory inclusionary zoning program, and we would have preferred it here. But we believe that the program reached here will work:

** Developers are very likely to choose to include affordable housing: We sharply criticized the first 3 variations of voluntary programs, because they were far too little. But the final compromise provides a very powerful set of incentives. The significant density bonus, tax breaks only if you include affordable housing (with 90% on-site), and financial incentives mean that developers who include affordable housing will effectively double their returns (vs. building only market-rate).

** All of the affordable units will be permanently affordable, one of the first times that this has been done in NYC or elsewhere.

** The income-targeting is very good – the significant majority of affordable units will go to people at or below 60% of area median income (i.e. a family of 4 earning no more than about $40,000). For the first time, a substantial number of units will go to people earning 20 – 40% of AMI (i.e. from $10,000 – about $27,500).

** The vast majority of the affordable units that are part of the inclusionary zoning program – around 90% -- will be built on-site, on waterfront parcels, as the result of a very hard bargain that elected officials negotiated around the 421-a tax exemption program.

** There are strong anti-harassment & anti-displacement provisions – including is a $2 million fund for organization, counseling, and legal representation to tenants facing displacement, and a commitment by the City to follow up & introduce the first anti-harassment/anti-displacement zoning text anywhere in the city outside of Hell’s Kitchen.

A reasonable approach on jobs
The Pratt Center has worked closely with the New York Industrial Retention Network, the Municipal Arts Society, and local groups like GMDC and NAG in calling for a better approach to preserving industrial jobs in NYC. While we are glad that the Bloomberg Administration has finally launched a strategy for manufacturing and industrial jobs, they have not yet done enough. In particular, they have not done anything to preserve industry in mixed-use neighborhoods. The current MX zoning simply facilitates conversion to residential uses, and we need new zoning text to create balanced mixed-uses, which preserve manufacturing over time.

Given those overall policy trends, however, much was done to mitigate the loss of manufacturing jobs here. Two industrial business zones were outlined, where the Administration promises stronger enforcement, relocation subsidies, and zoning changes that helps businesses. Twenty million dollars was committed for non-profit groups like GMDC to develop safe spaces for manufacturers; another $4 million was committed for relocation; and $78 million was committed for new industrial space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. While the proof will be in implementation, of course, these are the most significant steps the Bloomberg Administration has taken to preserve manufacturing jobs, they were won through advocacy, and they have the potential to work.

In addition, the rezoning features a landmark agreement, won by SEIU Local 32BJ (the building service workers union) in collaboration with affordable housing advocates, under which the waterfront developers agreed to pay prevailing wages to their building service workers. This will mean that nearly 500 jobs will pay in the mid-$40,000s, with health benefits. These are the kinds of living-wage policies that unions and communities can win when they work together.

Open Space & Community Quality of Life
Along with neighborhood park advocates, we would have liked to see a publicly-developed waterfront park here, and we are nervous that the esplanade will be developed in bits-and-pieces. Nonetheless, over time the plan will create over 50 acres of parks and open space, and much of this was won through community advocacy. The community will begin to recover its waterfront and gain new open space, even at a time when there are insufficient public funds for new parkland.

The individuals who are most disappointed here, of course, are the ones who wanted smaller buildings on the waterfront. While we appreciate the desire for lower density, we believe this plan strikes a reasonable balance, and that we need to find ways to be for growth, when its benefits are broadly shared:

** For most of the neighborhood (almost all of the inland portions), the rezoning includes lower height-caps than currently exist – buildings will be limited to five or six stories in most places – and it will prevent the out-of-scale development that is now taking place.

** Lower-density buildings on the waterfront would likely have been less affordable (since developers would still have to pay for the infrastructure). It is the additional density that is being used here to leverage affordable housing and the waterfront esplanade.

** Low-density luxury housing on the waterfront (which is what would have been built if a lower FAR had been adopted without inclusionary provisions) would probably lead to MORE displacement. The neighborhood would still have become an attractive destination, but with fewer waterfront units available, more high-end buyers would be forced to move further inland.

** The NYC region is project to grow by 4 million people over the next 25 years, and we need to find room for growth. The North Brooklyn waterfront is a reasonable place to look. If we seek to downzone everywhere (which is far too much of what City Planning is doing), we will force more people into illegal basements and garages, doubled-up units, and sprawling development at the region’s fringe.

Are there problems with this rezoning? Of course there are. It does not plan adequately for the infrastructure that will be needed – more public transportation, eventually more public schools and child care. It is not enough to look at these items when 25% of the development takes place. Where this Administration wants to insure new infrastructure (like the 7 train to the far west side), it builds it into the plans. It would have been better to do so here.

But overall, this is a good deal. The changes made as a result of community organizing are significant. In the end, we believe that the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning is a good model for equitable development that balances growth with benefits for a wide range of people in the community.

Related Links:

Issue Brief: Prevailing Wage for Greenpoint-Williamsburg is Smart Policy
Testimony to NY City Council on Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning
New York Times Article: City Backs Makeover for Decaying Brooklyn Waterfront
New York Times Editorial: On the Waterfront in Brooklyn