NYC activists plan lawsuit to fight Gowanus Canal rezoning
Brooklyn activists are planning a last-minute effort to derail the proposed rezoning around the Gowanus Canal, saying the recent devastation from Hurricane Ida shows the city needs to do a better job taking flooding, climate change and its sewage system into account.
The City Council is expected In the coming weeks to approve Mayor de Blasio’s plans allowing thousands of new market-rate apartments to be built along the canal, where toxic waste from old industrial businesses staved off development for decades.
Two grassroots groups, Voice of Gowanus and Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, last week hired high-profile environmental lawyer Richard Lippes to challenge the rezoning.
He’s on track to file a complaint in state court once the City Council and de Blasio green-light the proposal.
“Nothing about the plan has taken into consideration the realities of climate change,” Miranda Sielaff, a member of Voice of Gowanus, told the Daily News on Sunday.
“The city has felt the brunt of climate change with Ida and we can’t afford these kinds of projects that fall short of protecting human health and the environment,” she added.
Last month, the city released its final review of the environmental impact of apartment buildings development along the nearly 2-mile-long canal. It found the rezoning “would not result in a significant adverse impact on the city’s water supply, wastewater treatment or stormwater management infrastructure,” among other conclusions.
Local activists have opposed the proposed rezoning for years, saying its affordable-housing component would be inadequate and arguing the area — which the feds designated a toxic Superfund site in 2010 — is too polluted for development.
Hurricane Ida, remnants of which caused deadly flooding in parts of the city last month, has provided a new line of attack.
“They have grossly underestimated the dangers of too much water, too much rain,” Voice of Gowanus member Penn Rhodeen said of city officials. “The city has systematically done this kind of fraudulent use of irrelevant, outmoded, inaccurate, beside-the-point statistics about the amount of rain to be expected.”
The Department of City Planning rejected the anticipated suit as “the latest attempt to preserve a status quo that keeps out low- and middle-income New Yorkers, exacerbates displacement and leaves Gowanus vulnerable to climate change.
“Our plan ... will improve the neighborhood’s climate infrastructure and lead to a brighter, more affordable and more resilient Gowanus,” added department spokesman Joe Marvilli.
The plan has backing from key elected officials — City Councilman Brad Lander, whose district includes the canal, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who’s expected to win November’s mayoral election, support it. Adams tied his support of the rezoning to an influx of funds to nearby NYCHA buildings.
Other local pols have come out against the plans, with Rep. Nydia Velazquez and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon criticizing the rezoning last month.
Voice of Gowanus sued the city in January over plans to hold a public review virtually. The review got delayed until August, when it was was held in a hybrid in-person/online format.
Now the activists are counting on Lippes to live up to his track record and halt the rezoning. He famously represented hundreds of Niagara Falls residents against a chemical company that contaminated the upstate Love Canal area, reaching a major settlement in 1983.
“This plan is fundamentally anti-Brooklyn,” Rhodeen said of the rezoning. “This is about he heart and soul of Brooklyn.”
