the red hook
GOTTSCHALK ON NEW MELVINS, PAGE 17
STAR REVUE
FEBRUARY 2021 INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
FREE
IS THIS RED HOOK'S FUTURE? A permanent change to the Red Hook skyline may be on the horizon. This is a rendering of a proposed Red Hook high-rise. The plans have just been submitted for approval to the Board of Standards and Appeals, bypassing the City Council. The Community Board is also part of the decision process. Local input is still important. The Star-Revue encourages every Red Hook resident to let the BSA and the Community Board know what you think about this. DETAILS ON PAGE 7
GOWANUS NEIGHBORS TRY TO SLOW DOWN INEVITABLE CONSTRUCTION ONSLAUGHT
W
hen the city unleashes a rezoning and its accompanying host of contentious public review meetings on a neighborhood, seldom does anything stop it. A coalition of local grassroot organizations led by Voice of Gowanus managed to do so temporarily by suing the city and preventing it from triggering the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), a seven month path leading to approval in the City Council. On January 15, they were able to get a temporary restraining order stopping the clock, pending a final decision. At a subsequent hearing on February 4, Judge Katherine Levine unsuccessfuly tried to get the City to modify their virtual meeting format to include an in-person aspect to the virtual format made necessary by the pandemic. The City refused, claiming that a telephone option satisfied any inequities caused the need for a good computer connection.
by Jorge Bello Judge Levine tabled the hearing, announcing she would think it over and probably come to a decision the second week of February. In the claims Voice of Gowanus is bringing in, it argues that the city lacks transparency and did not abide by ULURP protocols set out in the City Charter, such as providing proper notice before certifying the rezoning. The lawsuit also addresses a lack of public participation as a result of the city holding ULURP meetings only virtually, which it has been doing since September. Even when there isn’t a global pandemic, community activism is something not everyone has the time or resources to do, and organizers think that a virtual ULURP would exclude even more Gowanus residents from a process specifically designed to give them a say in the rezoning of their neighborhood.
Fool me once Then again, even when people in a community targeted for rezoning are able to expend the time and energy
The Voices of Gowanus held an in-person press conference by the Canal last month announcing the filing of their lawsuit. (photo by George Fiala)
to attend ULURP meetings, their efforts are unlikely to be reflected in the version of the rezoning that gets implemented. In Gowanus, this has been true of the city’s past attempts at community planning, said Katia Kelly, who signed her name on the Voice of Gowanus lawsuit and has lived in the neighborhood for 36 years. From
2013 to 2015, Councilman Brad Lander presided over Bridging Gowanus, a series of public meetings he created with the goal of assuaging residents’ misgivings about the rezoning by giving them a chance to shape the agenda. Yet, when Lander presented the neighborhood plan at the final meet-
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