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Coney Island Rezoning Plan Released, Protests Promised
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 19, 2009
Modified Jan 19, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 19, 2009
Modified Jan 19, 2009
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Photo courtesy Barry Yanowitz.
At 1 p.m. tomorrow, the eyes of the world will be on a City Planning Commission Review Session in Spector Hall at 22 Reade Street, where the city will make a formal, public presentation of its controversial rezoning plan for Coney Island. Last week the Mayor's Office of Environmental Coordination quietly released their Final Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which outlines how the city will rezone the area to encourage the development of towers up to 27 stories tall, expanded retail spaces, 4,500 new housing units (800 of which would be built to be affordable units), and a new 27-acre indoor-outdoor amusement district to be dubbed the "People’s Playground."
Of course, before construction can begin the project must be voted on by the local community board, Borough President Markowitz, City Planning and the City Council. And then there's the little matter of all the property owned by developer Joe Sitt's company Thor Equities; the city will have to spend millions to buy Sitt's land in the area between the Cyclone roller coaster and Keyspan Park in order to create an amusement area on newly-designated park land. Craine's reports that Bloomberg expects to create 25,000 construction jobs and up to 6,000 permanent jobs in new amusement and hospitality-related businesses. (Hizzoner is expected to publicly announce the rezoning plan tomorrow, in between talking to the press about Obama.)
According to the Coney Island message board, the Save Coney Island group is urging people to silently protest during tomorrow's session; they argue that Bloomberg's vision will result in "another shopping mall filled with retail, high rise buildings and hotels." And Brooklyn Paper speculates that the rezoning plan will be the end of the Nathan's Famous hot dog stand on Surf Avenue, because it sits on land whose value could soar after a rezoning opens it up to development.
Tagged
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coney island
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environmental impact
nyc
review
rezone
zoning
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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