Council Approves Broadway Triangle Rezoning
Much has been made of the city council's recent triple override of Mayor Bloomberg: They've answered his vetoes with second votes overruling him on the Kingsbridge Armory mall, the five-minute parking grace, and an expansion of clergy parking privileges.
But yesterday they gave him the Broadway Triangle rezoning. The city wants to build affordable housing in this north Brooklyn swath, which has been home to many small, mostly industrial businesses for decades, now either in jeopardy or rendered illegal; the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has already sent letters to that effect to many of them.
The Greenpoint Gazette has profiled a couple of the Triangle entrepreneurs who will almost certainly be squeezed out and will have a rough time finding new quarters. "We have four dumpsters full of fish garbage every day, we open at 2AM," says the owner of Service Smoked Fish. "Who wants to live next to that?"
Rights to the development have been promised to the United Jewish Organization and the Ridgwood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council without a bidding process, which pissed off a lot of local activists.
Nonetheless the council approved the rezoning, first in committee by 12-6 with one abstention, then in the full council, 36 to 10 with four abstentions. The councilman for the district, David Yassky, was among the yes votes; Diana Reyna led the opposition, defying local Party boss Vito Lopez to do so. And so some of the few remaining New Yorkers who make things as opposed to shuffling papers will find themselves bound to wander.
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