Last night an overflow crowd attended a Community Board 7 meeting to hear a presentation from the Department of City Planning about its draft proposal for rezoning Sunset Park. The area in question runs from 29th Street to 64th Street and 4th Avenue to the edge of 8th Avenue, and Planning’s draft proposal involves downzoning 75 percent of that to preserve the neighborhood’s low-rise character so it’s mostly R6B, which allows a max height of 40 feet or 50 feet after a setback. Some sections of the avenues covered in the draft rezoning plan will be upzoned to allow for areas of between six and eight stories with an inclusionary bonus for the construction of permanent affordable housing. According to Aaron Brashear of the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, the presentation was generally well-received, though not without comment and criticism. Many people still had questions about how the plan would affect the creation/preservation of affordable housing. The next phase of the rezoning will involve generating an Environmental Impact Statement and then starting ULURP, and the actual rezoning may go through by the end of this year.
Sunset Park One Step Closer to Rezoning [Brownstoner]