After years of developers seeking to rezone individual sites on and around Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the City Council has paved the way for 4,600 new homes in the area.
The City Council on Wednesday agreed to rezone a 21-block area that spans Prospect Heights, northwestern Crown Heights and southern Bedford Stuyvesant along Atlantic Avenue. The rezoning, known as the Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan, or AAMUP, allows for new housing construction in the area, which is currently dominated by low-density commercial and industrial zoning. The thousands of residential units, of which 1,900 will be below-market rate, are expected to be built over the next 10 years.
The approval follows more than a decade of efforts to change the area’s outdated zoning. Brooklyn’s Community Board 8 began the process in 2013, forming a subcommittee focused on Manufacturing, Commercial, Residential Opportunity for a Working Neighborhood, also known as M-Crown. The community board approved a resolution in 2015 calling for a rezoning that would bring more housing to the area and began working with the Department of City Planning in 2016. The rezoning, however, wasn’t among the neighborhood plans prioritized by the de Blasio administration.
Before approving the rezoning, the City Council made a few adjustments, slightly reducing the allowable residential density in some areas. The Council also preserved light industrial zoning in a block bounded by Dean and Bergen streets and Classon and Franklin avenues. Projects built on Atlantic Avenue can qualify for a density bonus if on lots that span 30,000 square feet or more. The Council increased this threshold from 20,000 square feet.
A few local politicians have been pushing for AAMUP. Soon after taking office in 2022, Council member Crystal Hudson made clear that she didn’t support scattered rezonings along Atlantic Avenue. She objected to two apartment projects planned along the thoroughfare, but ultimately approved them after the developers agreed to increase the projects’ number of affordable apartments.
Even so, she killed a 150-unit project planned for 962 Pacific Street, urging the developer to wait until AAMUP was approved.
Residential projects built in the rezoning area must abide by option one of the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, which means 25 percent of apartments must be affordable, on average, to those earning 60 percent of the area median income.
That falls short of the requirements laid out in District 35’s land use framework, which Council member Hudson has said guides her land use decisions. The framework calls for rental projects that are either deeply affordable (80 percent of units affordable to those earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income) or that go above and beyond MIH requirements.
When asked about how the rezoning complies with the framework, Hudson pointed to the 900 affordable units planned across seven publicly-owned sites at 542 Dean Street, 516 Bergen Street, 1134 Pacific Street, a parking lot at 457 Nostrand Avenue, 32-34 Putnam Avenue, 1024 Fulton Street and 1110 Atlantic Avenue.
“We secured 900 additional units affordable for lower income New Yorkers, ensuring two in every five units is affordable, which is significantly beyond what we would have secured with Mandatory Inclusionary Housing alone,” Hudson said in a statement. “AAMUP is a testament to how community-led planning can deliver for not only the local community, but also serve as a model for the entire city.”
The Adams administration also committed $215 million to infrastructure and other improvements. It is unclear how much city subsidy will be needed to fund the affordable housing on the public sites.
In a video released on social media Wednesday, Council member Chi Ossé and Hudson said that the Atlantic Avenue rezoning will help prevent the displacement of residents, noting that Bed Stuy has lost 22,000 Black residents over the last decade. They explain that limited housing options allow landlords to drive up rents, making it harder for long-term residents to compete.
“People who oppose new housing constitute a pro-landlord lobby,” Ossé said in the video.
“We can’t afford to let them win,” Hudson said.
The rezoning would pave the way for more housing in the area than has been built in the past decade, according to the Council.
On Wednesday, the City Council released a Community Planning Framework to help guide its members, developers, city agencies and community groups through neighborhood and citywide planning. The framework pointed to AAMUP as an example of proactive planning.
When asked if AAMUP should serve as a model for future plans, even with its long timeline, Department of City Planning Director Dan Garodnick commended Hudson, Ossé, community boards 3 and 8 and the various stakeholders that helped get the rezoning over the finish line.
“It’s important to us to have that level of partnership at the community level,” he said. “It helps to ensure that our plans are complete and successful. We are really proud of the result here.”
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