Skip ahead to content

Home

rezoning

Affordable Housing Not Included

Media posted October 13, 2009

Read more

Sunset Park Rezoning

Project posted April 29, 2009

Sunset Park residents envision neighborhood growth

Planning the Scale of Future Development

The Pratt Center worked with Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez and Community Board 7 to help residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn weigh in on current development and a potential rezoning. The project has its roots in a grassroots campaign waged by area residents, who successfully lobbied against one developer's plans to construct a twelve-story building that would have marred the view from Sunset Park. After convincing the developer to significantly scale down plans, residents recognized the larger need to rezone the neighborhood, where new development currently faces no height restrictions. The community momentum around rezoning also presented an opportunity to address pressing related issues, notably the need to preserve and create affordable housing.

Read more

Inclusionary Zoning

Project posted April 29, 2009

Brad Lander at the IZ Press Conference

A Powerful Tool for the Creation of Affordable Housing

During his first term in office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced expansive plans to rezone more than twenty New York City communities – including the Far West Side of Manhattan, Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Long Island City, and parts of the South Bronx. As originally proposed, the plans were poised to generate more than 50,000 new units of housing, almost all of them for rent or sale at market rates. 

Read more

Downtown Brooklyn's Fulton Mall

Project posted April 29, 2009

Fulton Mall

Fulton Mall: New Strategies for Preservation and Planning

Amidst the city's broad redevelopment plan for downtown Brooklyn, Fulton Mall: New Strategies for Preservation and Planning seeks to offer ideas for securing the future of Fulton Mall as a vital public place.

Read more

Willets Point

Project posted April 16, 2009

Community Planning for Economic Development

As the City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) moves to redevelop Willets Point, an industrial area nestled between Corona and Flushing north of Flushing Meadows Park, the Pratt Center for Community Development facilitated a series of workshops to identify and prioritize the concerns of area residents, business owners and workers.

Read more

Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA)

Page posted April 6, 2009

A New Destiny for an Old Urban Renewal Site

Four decades ago, an urban renewal project near the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge on Manhattan's Lower East Side displaced thousands of low-income tenants. While the city built affordable housing on some of the cleared parcels in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), several large blocks went undeveloped. Today, parking lots occupy the undeveloped zone of SPURA along Delancey Street, even while the Lower East Side, where the typical household earns $37,000 a year, urgently needs more affordable housing.

Read more

Living Libraries

Project posted March 31, 2009

An Affordable Housing Opportunity Takes Root

New York City's branch libraries play a vital role in the life of the city, acculturating new generations of immigrants, supplementing children's education beyond school walls, and offering new media to those who would not otherwise have access to technology.

Read more

Coney Island Rezoning

Testimony last updated March 30, 2009

Testimony to Brooklyn Borough President on Coney Island Rezoning
March 30, 2009

I’m Vicki Weiner, Director of Planning & Preservation at the Pratt Center for Community Development. Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony today.  The Pratt Center is a university-based non-profit organization that works for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city for all New Yorkers by helping communities to plan for and realize their future.  For decades, Coney Island has been a haven for working class New Yorkers. A century ago, it was the first place that working people could reach, and afford, for a break from their daily grind in sweatshops. It has remained for decades a place that people of every walk of life can get to by subway, and yet feel they have gone to another world. As the City of New York proposes to redevelop Coney Island, it must ensure that Coney remains a place that creates opportunity for working New Yorkers. 

Read more

Pratt Center eNews - Summer 2008

News last updated September 4, 2008

In this Issue:

  • A Message from Pratt Center Sustainability and Environmental Justice Director Joan Byron
  • Mapping New York's Dwindling Manufacturing Land
  • Promoting Public Plazas
  • Downtown Brooklyn Report Supports Affordable Housing Advocacy
  • Energy Matters Launches
  • Seeking Policies to Support Independent Businesses
  • Meet Pratt Center's Summer Interns
  • Contribute

Read more

Downtown Brooklyn's Detour: The Unanticipated Impacts of Rezoning and Development on Residents and Businesses

Report last updated July 16, 2008

This report highlights the differences between the foreseen impacts declared by the city during its review of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and the impacts now being felt by many people who have been living and doing business in Downtown Brooklyn. It compares the impacts of the rezoning as they were outlined in the plan's Final Environmental Impact Statement with how the area is now being developed.

Read more