Passing For Knowledge

The Sunset Park Zoning Debate: Over Before it Started

Sunset Park, one of the last great working-class neighborhoods in New York City, has been thrown into a quiet firestorm. Not too many people know what’s going on, and some of those who are cognizant of it are perhaps a little too “forward” in their approach.

What’s all the ruckus about? Well, there’s a rezoning set to occur. The NYC Department of City Planning details the proposal here. A zoning overlay map for the proposal can be found there as well. The contentious aspect of the plan is the switch from R6 to R6A (60 blocks, complete or piecewise) on sidestreets, and to R7A (101 blocks, piecewise) on certain avenues.

What?

It’s actually not too complicated. Right now almost every residence in Sunset Park is R6. R6 zoning gets you exactly what you have now, a proliferation of 3-4 story buildings, or your standard brick or brownstone row-houses.

R6A gets you 5-6 story buildings. R7A gets you 6-7 story buildings. In practice, you can actually have more than this, through a multitude of zoning waivers/workarounds (zoning lot mergers, right of development transfers, etc.). This zoning, in an up-and-coming neighborhood, is very like to get you condos, or otherwise unaffordable low-density housing.

The rest of the residential areas are going from R6 to R6B. What does one letter do? R6B is as close to historic neighborhood status as Sunset Park can get. Adding that “B” helps maintain what is already there. With the existing R6, theoretically, a slew of lots could be bought up and converted into tall (13 story) apartment buildings, with optional “Quality Housing.” Agreeing to Quality Housing mandates a lower, but wider (more lot coverage) building for new developments, in order to fit the “feel” of a neighborhood. In R6B, the Quality Housing is mandatory. R6B areas, as a whole, will probably be left untouched by the hands of developers, simply because it’s not worth the effort when dealing with Quality Housing.

That sounds like good news, but it isn’t. For a decent amount of time, the current residents of Sunset Park would enjoy the characteristics of their neighborhood going mostly unmolested, except for those R6A/R7A pockets of rezoning. But who’s going to be living in those R6B houses in 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? Take a look at rent prices over the last 5 years. Take a look at the earmarks for greenspace along the waterfront. The intention for these changes is geared toward an entirely different demographic, and an entirely different community — even if the building facades hiding them stay the same. Selecting R6B for the majority (some 60%) of the zoning proposal is truly a real estate broker’s dream — Sunset Park takes another giant leap toward homogenizing with the ever-burgeoning “South” Park Slope.

Defenders of the rezoning will ramble about the R6 to R6B change, or the Quality Housing incentives for R6A/R7A. But this is just spinning the reality to make it seem like the outcome just described isn’t in some way intended.

Zoning changes, because of their complexity and under-exposure to the public, are the most subtle yet important changes that could befall a neighborhood. But with Sunset Park, it was a chicken-and-egg scenario. For years small inroads had been made toward this plan by the eager consumer — realtors and young couples attempting to snag a joint in Brooklyn’s next “hot neighborhood” — in anticipation of higher rents to come and zoning changes to occur. Now that they are, the anticipation has been validated, and the cycle intensifies and self-perpetuates.

And now’s a perfect time for the re-zoning to be pushed through. Houses are foreclosing all over the city, and Sunset Park is in no way immune to it. Housing prices (except rents, it seems) are dropping markedly. So, unsurprisingly, sales are picking up in Sunset Park.

At least in 20 years I’ll be able to walk by and point out my “childhood home.” It should look the same, since it’s in an R6B area. But the community won’t be the same, and I probably won’t be too interested in meeting the people inside.