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Problems Remain with City’s Revised Industrial Re-Zoning Proposal
As reported by Crains New York today, May 10, the City's plan to rezone 14 blocks of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone to a commercial / industrial mix has been scaled back to 1 block - the development site at 25 Kent Ave. This change demonstrates the significance of this local rezoning which has implications for the city's broader industrial land use policy, as outlined in the Mayor's Industrial Plan.
As reported by Crains New York today, May 10, the City's plan to rezone 14 blocks of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone to a commercial / industrial mix has been scaled back to 1 block - the development site at 25 Kent Ave. This change demonstrates the significance of this local rezoning which has implications for the city's broader industrial land use policy, as outlined in the Mayor's Industrial Plan.
As ANHD and neighborhood advocates have argued since the beginning of the ULURP process, the proposed zoning text amendment's mixed used tool, the Enhanced Business Area (EBA), can be mapped in other neighborhoods across the five boroughs. The Department of City Planning (co-applicants on the rezoning) changed the proposed EBA from 14 blocks to only 1 site, but this does not change the significant concerns of this rezoning.
- The dedicated industrial and manufacturing component of an EBA building is a small portion of the space (roughly 17%), especially given that a goal of the EBA is to continue to preserve and bolster the growth of the industrial sector.
- The ratio of commercial, light industrial, and as-of right uses was derived by the developer, not by any public study.
- It is unclear if the 25 Kent Ave proposal was based upon rents that are actually affordable for industrial and manufacturing businesses being displaced from the neighborhood.
- There are no affordability restrictions on the industrial space to ensure that they are affordable for, and can go to, truly industrial businesses and not prohibitively priced.
- The proposal includes no mechanisms for enforcement that ensure that the public promise of job-generating, production-based manufacturing business.
- There is no oversight agency identified in the rezoning proposal.
- This Enhanced Business Area land use text could still be applied in other areas across the city.
Furthermore, this 25 Kent Ave citywide text application has moved forward while other central pieces of the Mayor's industrial land-use plan have not. The Administration and Council advanced commendable industrial land use reforms, captured in the Council's Engines of Opportunity report and in the Mayor's Industrial Action Plan. The Administration has yet to move forward on manufacturing use-group reforms that would limit as-of-right non-industrial uses such as big box stores, hotels, and nightlife establishments in industrial buildings. Critically, it has not moved on creating a new Industrial Employment District zoning designation that would allow for additional density in areas where exclusive manufacturing/industrial activity exists in order to protect and grow these and new industrial businesses. We support the Administration's effort to bolster the industrial and manufacturing sector. However, the Enhanced Business Area tool, as crafted in the proposed zoning text amendment, falls short of creating the space or opportunities necessary for industrial and manufacturing businesses to grow and create the middle class jobs that New Yorkers need.