Tell CB6 Land Use Committee Members to Vote NO on Gowanus Rezone | Tell CB6 Members to vote NO on Gowanus Rezone

Tell CB6 Land Use Committee Members to Vote NO on Gowanus Rezone

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JOIN BK CB2: VOTE NO ON THE GOWANUS REZONING

“It is not affordable. Now you’re building something on a contaminated canal. It’s not right.”

Dear Community Board 6 Land Use Committee Member,

Tonight, you will be asked to make one of the largest land-use decisions in the history of New York City. Over 100 acres of land in Gowanus are to be rezoned all at once—60 development sites in all. The rezone will open the doors to the development of dozens upon dozens of luxury apartment towers, many stretching 22 to 30 stories tall.  It will pave the way for billions of state taxpayer dollars to be paid out to support the construction of those developments. And not a single one of the developments will pay property taxes for the next 35 years, thereby contributing nothing towards the services and infrastructure needed to support 20,000 new residents.

Worst of all, there are serious environmental issues that are being ignored to push this plan forward, and much of what is being promised falls far short of what the community actually needs.

I urge you to vote no - just like an overwhelming majority of Community Board 2 and a majority of its Land Use Committee did.

Why should you vote no?

- The rezoning and ULURP process cannot go forward until the draft environmental impact statement is re-done by the city with full involvement of federal agencies including EPA, EMA, the Army Corps., and HUD.  These agencies must be involved - not merely commenting, but in helping prepare the DEIS - under state and federal law. You are being asked to make a decision without receiving all of the information that you deserve.

- As CB2 noted, this is not about affordable housing: it will overwhelmingly create market rate luxury units. The few truly affordable units will be located on the site of a former manufactured gas plant, one of the most toxic sites in the state - and the plumes of carcinogenic coal tar under that site will not be fully removed. This will endanger human health for those made to live on the site.

- The tanks will not be built.  Combined sewer overflow into the Gowanus Canal is a real problem, and the rezoning should not be passed until the tanks to capture overflow are built.  And even then, the CSO tanks are only designed to capture sewage from the current cityscape around Gowanus - not the full buildout that would come with the rezoning. This is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.

- No racial impact study has been conducted to allow the community to see how much displacement will affect Gowanus and adjacent neighborhoods if the rezoning passes.  Both council members support a racial impact study...but tellingly didn’t require one for the Gowanus rezoning in their own districts even though they could have!  Strange.

- The rezoning would push housing into a repeat FEMA Flood Zone A landscape; there’s a reason residential wasn’t located in the Gowanus along the Canal: it has always flooded, just as it did after Hurricane Sandy.
 
I believe Gowanus deserves better. This plan is flawed and premature at best and downright duplicitous at worst. Please do not allow this extremely flawed proposal to go forward. DO NOT VOTE TO APPROVE WITH CONDITIONS.  CONDITIONS IN ULURP MEAN NOTHING.
We only have one chance to get this right, and the plan you will be voting on tonight is not it.  VOTE NO.

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