Community Board 8 (Crown Heights) Meeting tonight 6:30 Topic: Rezoning!

UPDATE The community board 8 has voted unanimously to approve the current rezoning proposal, however its important to note that the current propsoal is essentially a draft and changes can be made to it.
One of the main changes requested by the residents who spoke is that the voluntary option included in the current plan (allowing developers to decide whether or not to provide affordable housing) be changed to mandatory.
Also during the meeting the new Commanding Officer of the 77th Precinct was introduced, he and his family are long term residents of Crown Heights which is covered by the 77th.

Additional issues discussed during the meeting included permissions for new and existing food establishments and votes for board positions.

My twitter feed @BklynBornBlog has details posted as the rezoning issue was being discussed.


Posted at 6p (prior to voting)

I'm positing exactly the text from the I Love Franklin Avenue Blog just to spread the word quickly about tonight's community board meeting to discuss rezoning in Crown Heights.

I wanted to write a detailed post about the pros and cons of the discussion, but here's my super-condensed opinion. Landmarking is good for Crown Heights. It will promote more of what long term residents truly want in the neighborhood, while being less invasive a process than some long time residents seemed to believe (based on the community meeting I attended, held on April 16th).

Come on out if you're in the hood. Speak up, make your voice heard.

UPDATE After attending the meeting, I came to the belief that the plan should be adjusted to make developers requirement to provide affordable housing mandatory instead of voluntary.

Crown Heights has proven itself to be a desired money maker for developers. In my opinion and in light of the facts that voluntary inclusion options provide very poor results, I believe developers don't need incentives to build they need restrictions to keep them from excluding exactly the type of working class taxpayers that have been the heart of Crown Heights for decades.

From I Love Franklin ave Blog:

Community Board 8 holds its public hearing on the proposed rezoning of "Crown Heights West" tonight at 7pm. Complete info is copied from their website below.

The Crown Heights West Rezoning proposal will be discussed for the third time at CB 8's Housing/ULURP Committee meeting on Thursday May 2, 2013, 6:30 p.m. at CenterLight Health Systems/CNR, 727 Classon Ave @ Park Place.

Written comments are invited and can be faxed ahead to the Board office at 718-778-2979, or emailed to info@brooklyncb8.org.

The Public Hearing on the proposal will be held Thursday, May 9, 2013 during the regularly scheduled full Board meeting that starts at 6:30 p.m. The meeting willl be held at Berean Missionary Baptist Church, 1635 Bergen Street, corner of Rochester Avenue.

*******

The Department of City Planning announced on March 18, 2013 that it is moving ahead with the process to contextually rezone a portion of western Crown Heights, at the request of Community Board 8. The proposed rezoning will encompass 55 blocks with the aim of preserving their historic character, promoting affordable housing and improving retail in the area. The goal of zoning will establish limits for building height and commercial areas; it will also offer incentives for affordable housing development along Franklin and Bedford avenues. ”The rezoning of western Crown Heights builds on our commitment to protecting the character of Brooklyn’s distinctive residential neighborhoods,” said Commissioner Amanda Burden in a prepared statement.

“This comprehensive rezoning proposal, developed in close consultation with the community and elected officials, will reinforce the neighborhood’s historic brownstone and row house blocks. It will also ensure new development is appropriately scaled along the area’s transit rich corridors and provides opportunities for affordable housing in select locations.” Community Board 8 has 60 days to review the proposal. Then it goes on to other City agencies. A map of the proposed rezoning is on the jump below, or you can view it on the City Planning website. To view the entire presentation and not just the overview of the project, click here.

To also download the Environmental Assessment Statement, and get additional information on the Crown Heights West Re-zoning Proposal, you can view it here. (Please note that it is a large document that takes a while to load.)

Crown Heights Rezoning Overview [NYC City Planning]

Crown Hts Landmark & Rezoning Meeting TONIGHT

A major proposal for landmarking and Rezoning in Crown Heights is happening tonight (Tuesday) at St Teresa's Church 563 Sterling Place, corner of Classon Av.

The meeting is to discuss the proposals submitted by the Community Board.

All are invited especially folks living and working in Crown Heights.

Bedtime for Brooklyn Bars?

Last Call? (probably not the last time that's used in the relation to this story, let's make it a drinking game!)

No one likes a drunk, except other drunks trying to score with the drunk. Bartenders don't even like drunks, they're often literally more trouble than their worth. So if forcing bars to close at midnight on weekdays as Community Boards in Prospect Heights, Crown Heights (same thing) Williamsburg & Bushwich are reported (by Gothamist and DNAinfo) to be trying to do, would reduce the disruptive drunk population in our streets, then by all means Community Boards, save us from this scourge.

Community Boards in my opinion are trying to have a say in what has been a fairly one way action of new businesses, many of them bars in communities that were without new and especially outside the community businesses.  The bars understandably want to and say they need to stay open on otherwise slow week day nights to be in business. Bar owners also cite the fact that throughout the city bars are open until 2-4am. Speaking as usual for myself, hasn't Freddy's (one of the bars cited in the Gothamist article) suffered enough already after having their decades old bar demolished to become a bike parking lot for the Barclays Center?

Seems like community board push back to me. Most if not all of the bars mentioned in the articles are on commercial streets that have a level of noise and business that comes from traffic, 24hr stores and other shops, are the bars that big a problem? Are bars infringing on Brooklyn's bedroom communities?

What do you think?