City planning honchos will address the community on their vision for the long-stalled Gowanus rezoning on Oct. 22, giving a chance for local civic gurus to ask questions of the hotly-contested land use changes, according to a city rep. “The Department of City Planning will give a general overview of the current status of the Gowanus plan and provide info on upcoming meetings and the ULURP process. We will also take questions from the Community Board about the proposal and timing,” said DCP rep Joe Marvilli in an email Friday. The agency’s scheduled update on the project to Community Board 6’s Landmarks and Land Use Committee comes ahead of the…
Lawyers trade barbs in 80 Flatbush upzoning case
The City Council’s approval of the upzoning of 80 Flatbush Ave. last year “was anything but a rubber stamp,” a lawyer for the New York City Educational Construction Fund said in a court hearing on Friday. “Public benefits drove this project,” Lawrence Bartelemucci asserted in oral arguments before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Melissa Anne Crane. The public benefits the 80 Flatbush mega-project will deliver include a new elementary school and a high school to replace Khalil Gibran International Academy, office space and 200 units of affordable housing, he said. The suit brought by the 400 & 500 State Street Block Association and its steering committee seeks the annulment of the upzoning — which changed 80 Flatbush’s floor area ratio, or FAR, to 15.7 from 6.5. Floor area…