New NYC Atlantic Avenue development plan sparks criticism over affordability, gentrification

The city unveiled new plans for the long-planned rezoning of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn late Wednesday, but residents swiftly expressed concerns about getting pushed out of their own neighborhood and fears that new development would not be affordable.

The new draft zoning framework is an early step in a process set to transform an important stretch of Brooklyn that’s been rapidly gentrifying for years.

“We need people who live and work in this community to actually be able to afford to live here also,” said Mimi Mitchell, a tenant advocate and Brooklyn Community Board 8 member. “Clearly, Black people are getting displaced for richer, whiter folk. And we need you to help us stop that.”

The Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan covers a largely commercial and industrial 13-block area of Atlantic between Vanderbilt and Nostrand Avenues, overlapping with parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights.

City officials touted the plan as key to revitalizing an important underdeveloped corridor.

“In the midst of a severe housing shortage, New York City must use every inch of space it can to create new homes and invest in communities across the city,” said Mayor Adams, who previously represented the area as borough president.

The draft zoning framework proposes a high-density mix of housing and commercial buildings with bustling ground floor spaces along the crucial east-west Atlantic Avenue, as well other mixed-use development in the surrounding area. The plan could bring about 4,000 new homes, roughly 1,150 to 1,550 of which would be permanently affordable.

The draft details are subject to modification as the process moves forward.

“For too long, outdated zoning has restricted housing opportunity and reinforced a car-and truck-centric streetscape on Atlantic Avenue,” Department of City Planning director Dan Garodnick said in a statement accompanying the formal announcement on Thursday. “This is an important step forward to create a more vibrant Central Brooklyn.”

According to the agency, the area’s outdated industrial zoning has hampered new development and limited job growth despite Atlantic Avenue’s prime location and robust transit access.

The city has also pledged $23.5 million in investments for St. Andrew’s Playground, a park located between Atlantic and Herkimer Street. Previously announced plans to create affordable housing at two city-owned sites on Dean Street and nearby Bergen Street are also moving forward, as well as a nonprofit-owned former transitional housing location on Pacific Street.

The new draft framework is the culmination of over eight months of community engagement by City Planning, Councilmember Crystal Hudson and consulting firm WXY Studio. The local community board had undertaken community engagement on the issue as far back as 2013 as part of the “M-CROWN” process.

But during a public meeting hosted by City Planning on Wednesday evening many Brooklynites expressed their trepidation about that plan and frustration with lack of affordability more broadly. Some questioned whether the months of community input would make it into the final version of the rezoning.

“[Throughout] this community engagement process, people were telling you over and over, ‘I can’t afford what people want to build, what are you going to do to limit the cost of what people want to build?’” said Sarah Lazur, an organizer. “We need to know if that’s going to happen or if all of this was just shouting into the wind.”

Last week the city shared the results of that process in a report summarizing the community’s priorities. In the report Hudson, who spearheaded the plan, described Central Brooklyn as the “epicenter” of New York’s housing crisis and said her district has lost a fifth of its Black residents in the past ten years alone.

Chief among the priorities were the desire for new deeply affordable housing, local job opportunities, improved safety along Atlantic, new green spaces and developing underutilized space in the landmarked Bedford-Atlantic Armory. The Armory serves as a men’s homeless shelter, and suggestions included adding supportive programming such as healthcare, mental health counseling and workforce development, a public library or a community center; the possibility of affordable housing was also raised.

Environmental review is next, followed by the sluggish land use process, which is estimated to begin next spring.

A second public meeting on the plan is set for mid-October.