Ad Policy<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n<\/section>\nParker, who was trained as a landscape architect, is deeply concerned about the environmental management of the canal and its growing number of green spaces, including green roofs and rain gardens. But that doesn\u2019t make her an opponent of the development. And that\u2019s the unusual part of this story.<\/p>\n
Along with 30 community members, including residents of the public housing complexes (which are run by the New York City Housing Authority) and leaders of a variety of long-standing neighborhood groups, Parker is part of something called the Gowanus Oversight Task Force, a volunteer organization formed specifically to oversee the deal that the community made with the city. The quid pro quo gave the city its rezoning in exchange for a broad range of public benefits, including a waterfront park, a new school, a rehabbed library, affordable housing, flood control, and the continued existence of an area zoned for industrial use.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, development battles in New York City pit real estate interests with a plan against local residents who oppose it. But what is happening in Gowanus, once you get past the frenetic construction, is something more interesting: A coalition of neighborhood organizations went into the process knowing what it wanted and came out with tangible gains.<\/p>\n
In the early stages, an organization called the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition convened residents of the Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens, the leaders of a nonprofit developer of affordable housing called the Fifth Avenue Committee, a number of local arts organizations, and environmental groups including the GCC. This coalition came up with over 50 \u201cpoints of agreement,\u201d including comprehensive in-unit renovations for all of the apartments at Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens and the \u201cfull remediation\u201d of a former gasworks that will become Gowanus Green, a neighborhood-scaled affordable housing development. Master-planned by the architecture firm Marvel, it will have approximately 950 units, a public school, and a waterfront park.<\/p>\n
One of the most significant benefits that the neighborhood extracted from the rezoning process is a commitment to the Gowanus Lowlands Master Plan, drafted by the GCC and the landscape architecture firm SCAPE in 2019. The plan offers a sophisticated template in which the cleaned-up canal becomes the spine linking a series of public spaces, including waterfront parks, esplanade gardens, and maybe even a couple of public restrooms. \u201cBy 2031 or \u201832, we\u2019ll have, overall, a 20-acre network of parks,\u201d Parker notes. And unlike the discrete parks built by developers along the East River waterfront under the 2005 rezoning of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, \u201cit will all connect.\u201d<\/p>\n