South Park Slope Community Group

*Park Slope Courier.*

By Charles Hack

Downzoning in Brooklyn can be like squeezing a balloon. Limit the size of developments in one neighborhood and high-rise developments pop up nearby.

When 110 blocks of Park Slope were rezoned in April 2003 to keep low-density housing, developers skipped south across 15th Street and started buying town houses and replacing them with high-rise condominiums.

“When our neighborhood was rezoned, all of sudden developers moved across to the south side of 15th Street,” said Tom Miskel, president of the Park Slope Civic Council.

Now Community Board 7 will be considering a proposal by the Department of City Planning to protect low-density areas in South Park Slope from further high-rise development.

The board will hold a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. on August 24 at 4101 4th Ave., and vote on the proposal to downzone some 50 blocks.

Last September, Community Board 7 approached City Planning to request that they come up with a proposal to provide “maximum protection” to South Park Slope.

City Planning returned with a proposal to rezone an area bounded 15th Street to the northeast, 24th Street to the southwest, 3rd Avenue to the northwest and Prospect Park West to the southeast.

However, not all the blocks within those borders would be downzoned.

But the most affected blocks, sandwiched between 4th Avenue and 7th Avenue, would be rezoned to reduce the number of stories permitted from around 12 under its present R6 zoning to four under a new R6B designation.

Some areas will be upzoned, for example a corridor along 4th Avenue would have a height limit of up to 12 stories, providing some 286 units of additional housing, according to Rachaele Raynoff, spokesperson for City Planning.

In addition, the Planning Department is working out a proposal that would allow developers to increase the housing densities further, if they agree to provide affordable housing.

Raynoff said that Bloomberg plans to create and preserve 68,000 units of affordable housing in the city over a five-year period. “It’s on, or ahead of schedule,” she said.

The changes would preserve the character of lower density housing in mid-blocks, while allowing developers to increase height and densities on wider avenues, Raynoff said.

“The Mayor is very committed to preserving and protecting lower-density neighborhoods from out-of-character development, providing opportunities for new development of housing for record populations, and of adding to the stock and supply of affordable housing in the city,” said Raynoff.

For some, the City Planning proposals exceeded expectations.

“Overall we are totally in support of the proposal that City Planning came back with,” said Travis Ruse, a member of Community Board 7 and volunteer for South South Slope – the organization that initiated the campaign to rezone the neighborhood — adding that he had thought the whole area would rezoned to R6B. That they included R5B was “pretty cool,” he said. R5B are mapped to preserve three-story rowhouses, whereas R6B typically rise to four stories.

If the Community Board approves the measures, it will then go through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) process before being presented to the City Council for final approval.

All supporters of the rezoning agreed that City Planning’s response had been quick. Miskel pointed out that it took 15 years to get the Park Slope rezoned.

But speed is of the essence if the rezoning is to prevent further loss of low-rise housing.

Miskel pointed out that developers who lay their foundations to taller buildings before zoning changes come into force will have them “grandfathered” in. “A lot of foundations are being poured,” he said.

Aaron Brashear, of Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights – another group that pushed for the change – said that four properties have been bought for redevelopment along block where he lives.
He said all of the “boxy” developments are out of character with the frame housing that is traditional in his area.

One building on 7th Avenue reaches 9 stories, he said. Another on 15th Street is to be 12 stories high.

Developers have also artificially inflated the prices of housing in the area, because they are prepared to pay homeowners double or triple what the properties would ordinarily be worth, Brashear said.

One developer was prepared to work with the community and redesign his proposed condominium because it would have interrupted a view between the St. Minerva Statue that stands on Battle Hill in Green-Wood Cemetery and the Statue of Liberty.

Under the proposed changes most blocks between 4th and 7th avenues, and 24 and 15th streets would be rezoned from R6 to R6B. But the southern side of 4th Avenue would be zoned to R8A from 24th Street to Prospect Avenue. Both sides of 4th Avenue, from Prospect Avenue to 15th Street, would be R8A. Typically, R8A are “bulky” 11-story apartment houses.

From 4th Avenue to 3rd Avenue between 15th Street and Prospect Avenue, most properties will be R6B, except along 3rd Avenue, which would be R6A. Six-story apartments would be typical in an area zoned for R6A.

The blocks between 7th Avenue and Prospect Park West would either be M1-1, R5B, R6B, or R8B. Most of the block between 19th and 20th streets would be zoned as M1-1. Between 15th and 16th streets would be R6B. Most of the remainder between 16th and 19th streets would be R5B. M1-1 mainly allows light manufacturing and commercial uses. R8B might rise to around seven floors.

Prospect Park West would be up-zoned to R8B on both sides of the street near the corner of Prospect Park West and 18th Street.

The blocks between 15th Street, Prospect Avenue, 7th Avenue and almost up to 6th Avenue will also be R5B.

Since the proposed rezoning area is surrounded by recently downzoned Park Slope, the Green-Wood Cemetery and manufacturing, the rezoning would not have a direct impact on its neighboring blocks, according to Brashear.

For more information contact Community Board 7 at (718) 854-0003.

_Reprinted with Permission of the Park Slope Courier._