City sets date for first Gowanus rezoning meeting

Speculators have snapped up major sites near canal since last effort was dropped in 2010

The city is getting ready to kick off the process of rezoning Gowanus to allow more housing later this month.

The Department of City Planning scheduled a meeting for Oct. 27 to launch the kind of studies used in places like East Harlem, East New York, Long Island City and other neighborhoods targeted for rezoning as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing agenda, DNAinfo reported.

The goals are to “foster a thriving neighborhood by reinforcing and encouraging a robust local economy anchored by a mix of uses and businesses, while creating opportunities for new housing with affordable housing in appropriate locations,” according to the Planning Department’s website.

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In the years since the city dropped the first effort to rezone the industrial Brooklyn neighborhood back in 2010, major developers such as Property Markets Group, Kushner Companies and SL Green Realty have snapped up sites near the canal, as The Real Deal wrote about in its October issue.

David Lichtenstein’s Lightstone Group recently completed its 450-unit 365 Bond Street, the first major residential development in the neighborhood. Community members, however, are concerned about preserving manufacturing and industrial space that could be lost to residential use. [DNAinfo]Rich Bockmann