South Park Slope Community Group

By Charles Hack
*The Park Slope Courier.*

Even as community members celebrate the City Council’s lightning fast approval of the Planning Department’s rezoning of South Park Slope, concern has turned to whether developers will be allowed to finish 12-story towers they started building before the rezoning became law.

The City Council unanimously voted to approve the rezoning plan on Nov. 16, which will prevent nine to 12-story tower developments that were being built in South Park Slope. The new rules took effect immediately.

“This is a great victory for the South Park Slope and Green-Wood Heights area,” said Aaron Brashear, co-founder of the Concerned Citizens of Green-Wood Heights. “This will discourage development that was so rampant in area. We need to move onto the next phase of community advocacy, which is to be a watchdog of current and new development sites in our area.”

Responding to community pressure, the Department of City Planning rezoned 50 blocks in South Park Slope, the outer boundaries of which reach 15th Street, Fourth Avenue, Prospect Park West and 24th Street and Green-Wood Cemetery.

The proposed zoning, which aims to protect the low-rise character of the neighborhood, will continue to allow mixed retail and residential buildings on several avenues, and higher density buildings along Fourth Avenue. Incentives will be provided for affordable housing on Fourth Avenue.

“The South Park Slope rezoning fulfills a commitment from the Bloomberg Administration to respond to the outcry from this community regarding out-of-scale, inappropriate development and I am thrilled that it has been adopted by the City Council,” said Amanda M. Burden, chair of the City Planning Commission and director of the Department of City Planning.

The fate of several developments — where developers have been working furiously to pour the foundations before the new zoning becomes law – is still unknown.

On the day the council voted, the Buildings Department was inspecting the status of nearly 80 building sites that could be affected by the new zoning, to decide whether they fell under the new zoning or the old zoning.

“We have been taking photos and creating files for 78 properties that we feel might be impacted by downzoning and are completing review of those inspections to determine who has been vested (grandfathered) under previous laws and who has to comply with newly prescribed zoning,” said Jennifer Givner, press secretary for the Buildings Department.

Some stop work orders were issued on properties that may violate the new zoning laws, where the foundations were not yet poured.

According to Brashear, these include construction sites at 245 16th St. and 200 16th St.

The Buildings Department has already posted a notice on a 12-story building at 182 15th St. — where a stop work has been in effect for several weeks — saying that the plans will not be vested. This means the developer must resubmit new plans that comply with new zoning laws.

But the fight may not end with the Buildings Department. Some buildings, whose foundations have been partially poured, may fall into a gray area and the developers may decide to appeal to Board of Standards and Appeals for a waiver.

Other developers may claim hardship and request a variance.

The Buildings Department allowed the architect of 614 Seventh Avenue to self-certify the foundations were completed on the day the rezoning was complete. The development could block the view between Green-Wood Cemetery’s Minerva statue and Lady Liberty.

The future of another controversial building, a 12-story development at 162 16th St. is still unknown.

Bo Samajopoulos, who supports the rezoning says that he fears that appeals to the BSA will be approved.

“The problem is, it’s all about money,” said Samajopoulos. “And they have the money.”

However, he said that the community will do “anything and everything” to prevent nonconforming developments from going through.

John Burns, founder of South Park Slope Community Group, one of the driving forces behind the rezoning effort, said that the speed at which the rezoning was approved- they requested the rezoning only last year- was because of intense pressure after the rezoning of Park Slope to the north.

“Hopefully this will preserve a good chunk of the neighborhood from overreaching development,” said Burns.

_Reprinted with permission from the Park Slope Courier._