Bed-Stuy zoning plan begins public review by city today
by amy zimmer / metro new york
> email this to a friend
MAY 7, 2007
BROOKLYN. A proposal to re-zone more than 200 blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant is expected to begin its public review process by the Department of City Planning today.
The city developed the plan at the behest of Brooklyn’s Community Board 3, which wants to preserve the neighborhood’s historic brownstone blocks while increasing incentives for affordable housing and “medium density” growth along Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue, according to City Planning officials.
“We’re interested in the fact that the brownstones have been here a long time,” said Joyce Turner, president of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board Inc., a local non-
profit that’s been active for nearly 70 years. “And we want the new properties to fit in with existing properties. There has to be consistency. ... We need to put some controls on this.”
Turner said her group also wanted to protect affordabilty.
“The property values have gone up and what’s more concerning is that the rental prices have gone up, making it harder for people to rent and harder for landlords to find renters,” she said.
Turner noticed that “before, a lot of people were cashing in” on the increases, but “now they realize the value of their property,” and “the good part is that some of the people who have been here for years and years have more of a legacy to leave their kids.”
Besides addressing housing concerns, a 2005 community plan CB3 developed with the Pratt Center for Community Development also focused on the need to attract a diversity of retailers and cultural facilities and to preserve manufacturing and jobs.
Turner agreed, and said the Fulton-Nostrand United Merchants Association was trying to create a business improvement district to turn the area into a tourism destination with more boutiques, bakeries and eateries.
“We hope it doesn’t become too expensive,” she added. “That’s why the most important thing is [to] have affordable housing.”