A lawsuit challenging the rezoning of the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn was dismissed this week, with a state court ruling that the city’s environmental impact statement is watertight.
A group of residents and community groups, including Voice of Gowanus and Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, had sued to stop the rezoning — which allows for more density to build more housing — claiming the city hadn't given appropriate considerations to the environmental impacts. The judge granted the city’s motion to dismiss on Tuesday, The Real Deal reports.
Judge Consuelo Mallafre Melendez wrote in her ruling that the applicants “either fail to point to any specific shortcomings in the [final environmental impact statement] or support these shortcomings with any substantive evidence other than their own opinions.”
She said the city had run a “comprehensive and thorough review” to show there were no environmental impacts. The community groups had also failed to notify the city of the petition in the required time frame.
Voice of Gowanus and Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus had previously filed a lawsuit claiming it was illegal to hold virtual public hearings about the proposed land use changes. But in April 2021, the state Supreme Court lifted a restraining order on the plans. In September, the plan received city planning approval.
The city council approved it three months later. Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was the largest rezoning the administration had done in eight years and involved the city agreeing to $200M in upgrades to public housing. City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, who had pushed back on the Industry City rezoning in 2020, was the only council member to vote against the proposal.
In all, the 82-block rezoning will allow for 8,500 new apartments to be built, with 3,000 of them set aside as affordable. Although the timeline in which those units would be built is unclear, apartment developers said the math would no longer work to develop for-rent multifamily in New York City when the 421-a tax break expired this month.
