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City set to finally get the ball rolling on North Brooklyn industrial rezoning
New plan would break neighborhood up into three sections and encourage new development
The city is getting ready to release a stalled plan to rezone the industrial part of Northern Brooklyn to make way for taller buildings.
The Department of City Planning is about to release its outline for the area that stretches from Greenpoint to Bushwick, which Mayor Bill de Blasio made part of his 10-point plan to protect manufacturing zones three years ago, Commercial Observer reported.
The 167-page report outlines initiatives to split the area up into three zones. The “core industrial zone” covers about two-thirds of the area and will be upzoned to allow buildings twice the size of their lots. The new zoning will prohibit nightclubs and concert venues.
The second zone will include an incentive to encourage developers to build or preserve industrial space in exchange for the right to include more office space, and the third area will encourage the development of new four- to six-story buildings without restrictions on the kinds of businesses that will occupy them.
“With nearly 20,000 jobs and a wide diversity of businesses, the North Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone is one of New York City’s most important job-producing centers,” DCP director Marisa Lago told CO in a statement. “As this administration works to foster more good-paying jobs in a broad range of business sectors, the North Brooklyn Industry and Innovation Plan zeroes in on key goals and tools to modernize outdated industrial zoning.”
The move comes after the de Blasio administration and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office struck a deal to bring Amazon’s headquarters to Long Island City.
De Blasio first proposed rezoning the industrial area of North Brooklyn three years ago, but when the deadline for the city’s study came and passed two years ago, many assumed the plan died on the drafting table. [CO] – Rich Bockmann