“Gowanus is a critical example, but there are other mixed-income projects with much needed affordable housing comprising thousands more apartments across the city—many in high opportunity communities, and all of which were duly approved through the city’s land-use process—that need the deadline extended in order to happen.”
Adi Talwar
Looking South down 3rd Avenue near the Gowanus rezoning area.In 2021, after more than decade of community discussion about the future of Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood, the New York City Council approved a rezoning of the area through the public land-use process, paving the way for a planned 8,500 new apartments, including nearly 3,000 affordable homes.
The July 2021 Gowanus Neighborhood Plan: Racial Equity Report on Housing and Opportunity by the NYC Council Land Use Division, with support from Columbia University Professor Lance Freeman, found that the addition of these affordable homes, amid a deepening housing crisis, would affirmatively further fair housing and make the largely white and well-off area more diverse and less segregated.
Those plans, which also include space for local manufacturers and artists, infrastructure improvements, upland environmental cleanups and over 18 acres of new waterfront parks and open space along a cleaned-up Gowanus Canal, are now in serious jeopardy. The state legislature, which talks often about wanting to address the housing crisis, can save them.
Here’s why: like much of the mixed-income rental housing built in New York City over the last decade, the rental housing planned for Gowanus is reliant on the use of a now-expired tax abatement called 421-a, which, when coupled with the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) requirements, provide developers with a tax abatement for the construction of permanently affordable housing. Units created through MIH and/or 421-a are also rent regulated, providing important protections to tenants.
But 421-a came with a 2026 deadline to complete the projects that utilized it. In Gowanus, 2,000 out of the 3,000 affordable units will be created through MIH and need more time because of delays resulting from challenges like site environmental cleanup requirements, preparation of infrastructure improvements, the need to secure financing in a tight market or lingering staffing and supply-chain issues as we recover from the pandemic.
It’s up to the legislature to extend that deadline until 2030 prior to the end of legislative session in Albany on June 8. To ensure that the 421-a units needing the extension better align with housing need, requiring permanent and deeper affordability of the new units should be included in the extension.
Gowanus is a critical example, but there are other mixed-income projects with much needed affordable housing comprising thousands more apartments across the city—many in high opportunity communities, and all of which were duly approved through the city’s land-use process—that need the deadline extended in order to happen. From Astoria to Williamsburg, those projects, too, need the legislature to act.
The New York Housing Conference, Fifth Avenue Committee and other advocates have been calling on our government partners to ensure each community does its fair share to address our affordable housing crisis, to build affordable housing outside of low-income neighborhoods to combat segregation and provide opportunities for thousands of families hoping to live in areas long unavailable to them.
In higher income neighborhoods, where land costs are more expensive, MIH coupled with a tax incentive is our main tool for producing affordable rental housing. The legislature has a chance to ensure the benefits of MIH are delivered to future renters.
Back in Gowanus, the decade-plus of extensive community dialogue and progress would, in many ways, be for naught without the state legislature taking action to extend the 421-a completion deadline before June 8. Now is not the time, after years of community discussion and a lengthy public review, to throw up yet another roadblock.
The state legislature talks about a housing crisis. There are broader housing and tenant protection bills requiring action in Albany too, but it is unclear whether there is a path forward on those in the final two weeks of session.
The facts on this are clear, and the legislature has a golden opportunity to be an active part of the solution in Gowanus and all around the city by extending the construction completion deadline – a policy decision that would reverberate for thousands of New Yorkers in need of affordable housing for decades to come. The time to act is now.
Michelle de la Uz is the executive director of Fifth Avenue Committee, which is based in Gowanus and dedicated to advancing economic, social and racial justice in New York City. Rachel Fee is the executive director of the New York Housing Conference, which works to advance city, state and federal policies and funding to support the development and preservation of decent and affordable housing for all New Yorkers.
9 thoughts on “Opinion: 421-a Deadline Threatens the Promise of Gowanus Rezoning”
Ms. de la Uz, With all due respect, you and your organization are planning on building housing and yes, some “so called” affordable housing on what the Federal Government has stated as the “most toxic land in the northeast” called Public Place!
You should be ashamed of yourself thinking that it’s alright putting people on that land! That’s what’s threatening your development, not the tax credits that you and the other developers have grown rich on at the expense of the rest of us New Yorkers.
Here we go again using so called affordable housing as a carrot to increase the profits for developers like the Fifth Ave Committee.
So you know, Ms. de la Uz annual salary is $150,000.00. Not a bad gig..
Yes, we need more truly affordable housing but please don’t let the Fifth Ave Committee put families who really need a place to live on top of what environmental experts call the most toxic site in the Northeast, Public Place.
Oh by the way, maybe the article should mention that the City is giving them Public Place for $1 dollar!
Dan, Thank you for bringing this to our attention!
Gowanus 101
What’s Happening in Gowanus?
The Canal
The Gowanus Canal Was Designated a “Superfund Site”
For over a century, the banks of the Gowanus Canal were line with industry and manufacturing companies, which released their toxic waste into the canal water as well into the ground. In 2010, the federal government identified the Gowanus Canal as one of the most toxic waterways in the entire country. It’s filled with toxins that pose serious public health risks. As a result, it was designated a “Superfund” site, and in 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency began a $1.5 billion cleanup of the canal.
The Land
The Gowanus Neighborhood Has Been Rezoned
In 2021, 82 blocks in Gowanus were changed from mainly industrial use to allowing residential development. The existing industrial buildings being demolished in the neighborhood will soon be replaced by dozens of apartment towers reaching up to 30 stories tall.
Most of the Rezoned Land is Highly Toxic
The vast majority of development sites in Gowanus (see map, below) are filled with cancer-causing toxins due to a century of industrial use, and have been classified by NY State as “Brownfield sites.” Some have toxins as deep as 150 feet.
The Infrastructure
Sewage Frequently Flows Into the Canal
During heavy rains, raw sewage flows into the canal because it exceeds the current sewer system’s capacity. As a result, the EPA has demanded that the City build two enormous “retention” tanks to keep excess sewage from going into the canal.
What’s The Problem?
The Land is Not Being Cleaned Up Fully, Leaving Toxins in the Soil
All of these sites need to be cleaned up before residential buildings can be built. State law requires they be cleaned to “pre-disposal conditions”—as they were before industrial poisoning. However, this is NOT happening. For instance, at some sites, where toxins reach as deep as 150 feet, the State is only calling for developers to clean less than the top 8 feet of contaminated soil.
Toxins Left in the Soil Can Enter Buildings And Threaten Future Residents’ Health
The State itself acknowledges that when certain toxins (“volatile organic compounds” or VOCs) are left in the soil, they can “move into buildings and affect the indoor air quality.”
Rather than remove them entirely, the State has decided that on the development sites, these toxins will be covered, or “capped,” with a slab of concrete. This method of dealing with toxic land, known as creating a “vapor intrusion barrier,” is very risky, and is so unreliable that these sites must be monitored every year, in perpetuity, to ensure that dangerous vapors haven’t penetrated people’s residences.
The Most Deeply-Affordable Housing Is Planned for the Most Seriously Toxic Site
Some of the worst contamination can be found at “Public Place,” a City-owned plot at the corner of Smith and Fifth Streets which for decades housed a manufactured gas plant that created waste known as “coal tar.” Exposure to coal tar has been linked to a variety of cancers. Coal tar at this site has been found to a depth of 150 feet.
The cleanup proposed for this site is woefully inadequate, and only the top 8 feet of soil will be cleaned. It is also the only site in the entire rezone where 100% of the 950 apartments target lower incomes, including units for unhoused individuals and seniors. A school has also been proposed for this site.
Placing the lowest-income residents in danger in this way raises Environmental Justice concerns.
Toxins Are Not Confined To Their Original Sites and Threaten the Health of Existing and Future Residents
Large “plumes” of migrating carcinogenic coal tar have already been found far from their original site in Gowanus, and with flooding and rising groundwater levels from climate change, these and other carcinogens can wind up underneath existing homes and intrude into them.
Fumes from the Toxic Construction Sites Pose a Danger to the Community
The disturbance of the land at these toxic construction sites has caused air monitors to be set off by toxic fumes reaching dangerously high levels, with the community not notified and only discovered after kids in the neighboring playground smelled it and reported it to our electeds.
The Gowanus Canal will be Re-Contaminated With Toxins
Without a full cleanup, toxins from the sites surrounding the canal will seep right back into the canal and re-contaminate it, thereby not only wasting $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars, but also returning the canal to its dangerously toxic state.
Sewage Retention Tanks Are Not Being Built, and Sewage will continue to flow into the canal—and into our homes
The City is not following the EPA’s timeline to build the required retention tanks, and at this point says that they won’t be complete until after 2030. And the retention tanks are only meant to deal with the current number of residents in the community; they don’t take into account the additional sewage that will be produced by 20,000 planned future residents.
Without the required retention tanks, and given increases in rainfall as a result of climate change, sewage will (and has) backed up into people’s homes.
Gowanus 101
What’s Happening in Gowanus?
The Canal
The Gowanus Canal Was Designated a “Superfund Site”
For over a century, the banks of the Gowanus Canal were line with industry and manufacturing companies, which released their toxic waste into the canal water as well into the ground. In 2010, the federal government identified the Gowanus Canal as one of the most toxic waterways in the entire country. It’s filled with toxins that pose serious public health risks. As a result, it was designated a “Superfund” site, and in 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency began a $1.5 billion cleanup of the canal.
The Land
The Gowanus Neighborhood Has Been Rezoned
In 2021, 82 blocks in Gowanus were changed from mainly industrial use to allowing residential development. The existing industrial buildings being demolished in the neighborhood will soon be replaced by dozens of apartment towers reaching up to 30 stories tall.
Most of the Rezoned Land is Highly Toxic
The vast majority of development sites in Gowanus (see map, below) are filled with cancer-causing toxins due to a century of industrial use, and have been classified by NY State as “Brownfield sites.” Some have toxins as deep as 150 feet.
The Infrastructure
Sewage Frequently Flows Into the Canal
During heavy rains, raw sewage flows into the canal because it exceeds the current sewer system’s capacity. As a result, the EPA has demanded that the City build two enormous “retention” tanks to keep excess sewage from going into the canal.
What’s The Problem?
The Land is Not Being Cleaned Up Fully, Leaving Toxins in the Soil
All of these sites need to be cleaned up before residential buildings can be built. State law requires they be cleaned to “pre-disposal conditions”—as they were before industrial poisoning. However, this is NOT happening. For instance, at some sites, where toxins reach as deep as 150 feet, the State is only calling for developers to clean less than the top 8 feet of contaminated soil.
Toxins Left in the Soil Can Enter Buildings And Threaten Future Residents’ Health
The State itself acknowledges that when certain toxins (“volatile organic compounds” or VOCs) are left in the soil, they can “move into buildings and affect the indoor air quality.”
Rather than remove them entirely, the State has decided that on the development sites, these toxins will be covered, or “capped,” with a slab of concrete. This method of dealing with toxic land, known as creating a “vapor intrusion barrier,” is very risky, and is so unreliable that these sites must be monitored every year, in perpetuity, to ensure that dangerous vapors haven’t penetrated people’s residences.
The Most Deeply-Affordable Housing Is Planned for the Most Seriously Toxic Site
Some of the worst contamination can be found at “Public Place,” a City-owned plot at the corner of Smith and Fifth Streets which for decades housed a manufactured gas plant that created waste known as “coal tar.” Exposure to coal tar has been linked to a variety of cancers. Coal tar at this site has been found to a depth of 150 feet.
The cleanup proposed for this site is woefully inadequate, and only the top 8 feet of soil will be cleaned. It is also the only site in the entire rezone where 100% of the 950 apartments target lower incomes, including units for unhoused individuals and seniors. A school has also been proposed for this site.
Placing the lowest-income residents in danger in this way raises Environmental Justice concerns.
Toxins Are Not Confined To Their Original Sites and Threaten the Health of Existing and Future Residents
Large “plumes” of migrating carcinogenic coal tar have already been found far from their original site in Gowanus, and with flooding and rising groundwater levels from climate change, these and other carcinogens can wind up underneath existing homes and intrude into them.
Fumes from the Toxic Construction Sites Pose a Danger to the Community
The disturbance of the land at these toxic construction sites has caused air monitors to be set off by toxic fumes reaching dangerously high levels, with the community not notified and only discovered after kids in the neighboring playground smelled it and reported it to our electeds.
The Gowanus Canal will be Re-Contaminated With Toxins
Without a full cleanup, toxins from the sites surrounding the canal will seep right back into the canal and re-contaminate it, thereby not only wasting $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars, but also returning the canal to its dangerously toxic state.
Sewage Retention Tanks Are Not Being Built, and Sewage will continue to flow into the canal—and into our homes
The City is not following the EPA’s timeline to build the required retention tanks, and at this point says that they won’t be complete until after 2030. And the retention tanks are only meant to deal with the current number of residents in the community; they don’t take into account the additional sewage that will be produced by 20,000 planned future residents.
Without the required retention tanks, and given increases in rainfall as a result of climate change, sewage will (and has) backed up into people’s homes.
while we wait to see what takes place for these Gowanus green apartments, and the true removal of cancer causing toxic in those waters, what they need to do is put the pressure on the broken promises at the Atlantic yards Development, that was supposed to have a large amount of low income, moderate, and senior apartments, yet you see more of middle and market rate units, where are these groups that was over seeing this Development? 5thave communittee, take a stand on that, while we wait for the toxic clean up, and I mean really clean up!!!
So.
Gowanus 101
What’s Happening in Gowanus?
The Canal
The Gowanus Canal Was Designated a “Superfund Site”
For over a century, the banks of the Gowanus Canal were line with industry and manufacturing companies, which released their toxic waste into the canal water as well into the ground. In 2010, the federal government identified the Gowanus Canal as one of the most toxic waterways in the entire country. It’s filled with toxins that pose serious public health risks. As a result, it was designated a “Superfund” site, and in 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency began a $1.5 billion cleanup of the canal.
The Land
The Gowanus Neighborhood Has Been Rezoned
In 2021, 82 blocks in Gowanus were changed from mainly industrial use to allowing residential development. The existing industrial buildings being demolished in the neighborhood will soon be replaced by dozens of apartment towers reaching up to 30 stories tall.
Most of the Rezoned Land is Highly Toxic
The vast majority of development sites in Gowanus (see map, below) are filled with cancer-causing toxins due to a century of industrial use, and have been classified by NY State as “Brownfield sites.” Some have toxins as deep as 150 feet.
The Infrastructure
Sewage Frequently Flows Into the Canal
During heavy rains, raw sewage flows into the canal because it exceeds the current sewer system’s capacity. As a result, the EPA has demanded that the City build two enormous “retention” tanks to keep excess sewage from going into the canal.
What’s The Problem?
The Land is Not Being Cleaned Up Fully, Leaving Toxins in the Soil
All of these sites need to be cleaned up before residential buildings can be built. State law requires they be cleaned to “pre-disposal conditions”—as they were before industrial poisoning. However, this is NOT happening. For instance, at some sites, where toxins reach as deep as 150 feet, the State is only calling for developers to clean less than the top 8 feet of contaminated soil.
Toxins Left in the Soil Can Enter Buildings And Threaten Future Residents’ Health
The State itself acknowledges that when certain toxins (“volatile organic compounds” or VOCs) are left in the soil, they can “move into buildings and affect the indoor air quality.”
Rather than remove them entirely, the State has decided that on the development sites, these toxins will be covered, or “capped,” with a slab of concrete. This method of dealing with toxic land, known as creating a “vapor intrusion barrier,” is very risky, and is so unreliable that these sites must be monitored every year, in perpetuity, to ensure that dangerous vapors haven’t penetrated people’s residences.
The Most Deeply-Affordable Housing Is Planned for the Most Seriously Toxic Site
Some of the worst contamination can be found at “Public Place,” a City-owned plot at the corner of Smith and Fifth Streets which for decades housed a manufactured gas plant that created waste known as “coal tar.” Exposure to coal tar has been linked to a variety of cancers. Coal tar at this site has been found to a depth of 150 feet.
The cleanup proposed for this site is woefully inadequate, and only the top 8 feet of soil will be cleaned. It is also the only site in the entire rezone where 100% of the 950 apartments target lower incomes, including units for unhoused individuals and seniors. A school has also been proposed for this site.
Placing the lowest-income residents in danger in this way raises Environmental Justice concerns.
Toxins Are Not Confined To Their Original Sites and Threaten the Health of Existing and Future Residents
Large “plumes” of migrating carcinogenic coal tar have already been found far from their original site in Gowanus, and with flooding and rising groundwater levels from climate change, these and other carcinogens can wind up underneath existing homes and intrude into them.
Fumes from the Toxic Construction Sites Pose a Danger to the Community
The disturbance of the land at these toxic construction sites has caused air monitors to be set off by toxic fumes reaching dangerously high levels, with the community not notified and only discovered after kids in the neighboring playground smelled it and reported it to our electeds.
The Gowanus Canal will be Re-Contaminated With Toxins
Without a full cleanup, toxins from the sites surrounding the canal will seep right back into the canal and re-contaminate it, thereby not only wasting $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars, but also returning the canal to its dangerously toxic state.
Sewage Retention Tanks Are Not Being Built, and Sewage will continue to flow into the canal—and into our homes
The City is not following the EPA’s timeline to build the required retention tanks, and at this point says that they won’t be complete until after 2030. And the retention tanks are only meant to deal with the current number of residents in the community; they don’t take into account the additional sewage that will be produced by 20,000 planned future residents.
Without the required retention tanks, and given increases in rainfall as a result of climate change, sewage will (and has) backed up into people’s homes.
What Can I Do?
Join the efforts of Voice of Gowanus, and sign up for our email alerts to keep up to date on what’s going on.
We’re working to ensure a complete cleanup of the toxic development sites in Gowanus to protect current and future residents, by demanding that Gov. Kathy Hochul guarantee that these sites be cleaned according to State law.
Donate to help support our efforts to keep the Gowanus neighborhood safe for all current and future residents.
oice of Gowanus (VOG), a local community coalition, today requested that Governor Hochul require a comprehensive cleanup of high-level chlorinated solvents, toxic metals and petroleum contamination documented at a highly popular entertainment venue located at 514 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY in strict compliance with all applicable State remediation requirements.
VOG posted a letter that it submitted to the Governor’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC): Please Do Not Adopt the Fatally Flawed Proposed “expedited cleanup of contamination at 514 Union Street,” Brownfield Site # C224318.
“Residents of the Gowanus Canal community will be shocked that State environmental authorities never alerted the public to toxic indoor air pollution concerns at one of the most popular local entertainment venues where cancer-causing chlorinated solvents were documented in 2021 more than 20-fold above a New York Department of Health Guideline,” said Katia Kelley, a member of VOG who is an At-Large member of the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group. “As a result, tens of thousands of residents might have been exposed to increased health risks by breathing potentially polluted indoor air at the site,” Ms. Kelly added.
According to detailed monitoring results available from the DEC, potentially cancer-causing chlorinated solvents were documented in indoor air at the site. In 2021, trichloroethylene was identified at more than 20-fold above the New York Department of Health Guideline of two micrograms/cubic meter. Trichloroethylene was documented in soils under the site at more than 10,000-fold above that guideline and poses a continuing indoor air threat despite efforts to vent pollution that intrudes into indoor air.
DEC has publicly stated that it has no plans to remediate all the toxic contamination documented at the site in strict compliance with state standards even though it potentially threatens thousands of local residents in the area.
“Governor Hochul is facing withering criticism for failing to enforce a State legal mandate to restore toxic sites in the Gowanus Canal community to ‘pre-disposal conditions,'” said Walter Hang, President of Toxics Targeting, Inc. an environmental database firm that recently documented more than three dozen massively polluted toxic sites around the Gowanus Canal that State authorities failed to remediate on a comprehensive basis for decades. “Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently criticized Governor Hochul’s administration for its inadequate toxic cleanup proposals,” added Hang.