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Williamsburg Zoning Impacts Economic Development
Last week, a Crain's story covered a little known special permit application for a 480,000-square-foot office building in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone. This application at 25 Kent Avenue has much broader implications, and is the start of a new citywide zoning text amendment to create a new model of a mixed use industrial / commercial district.
In the case of 25 Kent Avenue, the developer is attempting to replace the current requirement that a commercial development in this special zone have a public use component (such as medical offices, schools, nonprofits, or religious facilities), and instead require uses geared specifically towards a mix of commercial and light manufacturing.
Why does this matter?
This past November, the de Blasio Administration, with the City Council, took a crucial step forward with the announcement of a new Industrial Policy that committed to preserving and expanding the City's industrial sector, a key source of good jobs throughout the five boroughs. With low barriers to entry and real career pathways, industrial and manufacturing jobs, whose average wages are twice that of the retail sector, are a crucial avenue of opportunity and equitable economic development for low-income communities. The Mayor's plan included important and innovative new financing tools, programs, and zoning tools to expand the light manufacturing/industrial sector by 20,000 jobs, creating economic opportunities for the communities that most need them.
The promised new zoning tools are important because the light manufacturing uses that create the good-paying blue-collar jobs that are important opportunities for many neighborhoods are increasingly being driven out by non-manufacturing uses that are also permitted under the current zoning. Hotels, self-storage facilities, entertainment, and big-box stores are some of the most common competing uses driving up prices in industrial areas and take away much-needed space for industrial jobs. The citywide zoning text amendment proposed for 25 Kent Avenue would create a zoning tool to preserve light-manufacturing uses by designating "Enhanced Business Areas." Within these areas, developers would be eligible to apply for special permits to allow for the kind of mixed use pursued at 25 Kent Avenue. This site application would be the first to become an Enhanced Business Area in the city, if approved. Though no such plans are currently in place, the significance of this application goes beyond 25 Kent Avenue.
As noted in the Environmental Assessment Statement:
The proposed zoning text amendment would be a Citywide action that could be mapped elsewhere in the City; as such, it is possible that the new Enhanced Business Areas, facilitated by the proposed Zoning Text Amendment, could be mapped elsewhere to spur the development of buildings with a desirable floor area mix of commercial and Business Enhancing Uses. (EAS, A-16)
It is particularly noteworthy that the 25 Kent Avenue site is being mapped out as an Enhanced Business Areas inside the Greenpoint/Williamsburg IBZ, as it raises the possibility of such a zoning designation to be an option within any of the other 20 industrial business zones across the city. The special permits that would be available in Enhanced Business Areas would allow developers to gain an additional 2.5 feet of floor area to be devoted to "Incentive Uses" for every one foot of additional floor area devoted to "Business Enhancing Uses". These designations explicitly disallow the development of hotels, motels, or big box storage, which is a significant step to meeting the calls of industrial stakeholders and advocates, and to putting a piece of Mayor de Blasio's November 2015 Industrial Action Plan in place.
As this proposal begins the seven month ULURP process, ANHD, industrial and manufacturing policy stakeholders, and community groups look forward to working with local community boards and elected officials to evaluate the plan, and see where there may be opportunities to further strengthen the zoning proposal, so we can best achieve the shared goal of expanding quality jobs and equitable economic development.