Rezoning New York City

The next public meeting on the city's rezoning study of Gowanus is scheduled for Dec. 8.

The Economic Development Corporation seems to have slowed down the process for rezoning the northern Manhattan neighborhood amid a complex mix of support and skepticism among local residents.

Running for mayor back in 2013, Bill de Blasio promised to put an end to the destructive displacement of low-income communities supercharged by the developer-friendly housing policies of his predecessor. Under Mayor Bloomberg, rezoning in almost 40 percent of neighborhoods led to rampant high-end development, causing rents to skyrocket in...

It's unclear how closely the city's rezoning proposal will follow the most detailed community-based plan to emerge during the two-plus years of the de Blasio administration's housing push.

In the early 2000s, big changes started to come to the neighborhood.

More than a year after City Planning rejected their rezoning plan for being too ambitious, Chinatown advocates are hoping the de Blasio administration's commitment to 'community-based planning' will force a reconsideration.

'People in the Bronx are looking to be at the real table of envisioning what happens in their neighborhoods. They are open and ready for ideas that can get them out of poverty or allow them to stay where they are already invested.'

The limited scope, curious criteria and advisory nature of those studies has some community advocates worried the city will miss the problems Mayor de Blasio's zoning changes could cause.

Community groups pressed for deeper housing affordability and protections for workers. Other voices stressed different priorities.

"While the city considers rezoning a 20-block-long swath of Jerome Avenue beneath the elevated 4 tracks in the Bronx, developers are starting to bet big on the corridor’s commercial potential. Now two investors who lead 925 Capital Inc. want to sell or jointly redevelop a low-slung garage with retail at 1697-1705 Jerome Avenue, in Morris Heights. They’ve put the 75-foot-wide property on the market for $3,000,000, asking roughly $62 per buildable square foot. That’s also 30 times what it sold for in 2012"

The authority has held 40 meetings with residents at two developments targeted for the construction of new housing, talking out principles to guide each project. There are signs the effort is working to reduce anxieties about the new buildings.

NYCHA says an extensive visioning process among residents shaped a plan to build new housing developments in the Bronx and Brooklyn. But Tenant Association leaders feel their communities' feelings weren't taken seriously.

Residents of the Wyckoff Gardens Houses say NYCHA is blocking genuine tenant input by accelerating its timetable for finding a builder to construct mixed-income housing there.

Ydanis Rodriguez says he now plans to vote no on a proposed 17-story, 350-unit development along Fort Tryon Park — the latest test in Mayor de Blasio's affordable housing agenda.