A Brooklyn community board that conditionally approved Mayor Eric Adams’ “City of Yes” zoning proposal this year has rejected a much smaller rezoning application for Windsor Terrace — urging the company behind it to engage with the neighborhood on its concerns surrounding development and affordability.
Community Board 7, which runs through parts of central and south Brooklyn, issued a 30-6 vote this week that conditionally rejected a spot rezoning application by industrial laundry company Arrow Linen Supply. The zoning changes Arrow Linen is seeking would allow for a pair of 13-story buildings to be built along Prospect Avenue in Windsor Terrace, bringing in more than 200 apartments — at least a quarter of which would be affordable..
But backlash has swarmed the application, ranging from concerns that the development would look out of character for a neighborhood to Prospect Park’s south with an almost suburban feel — to objections that the proposal doesn’t have enough affordable units.
“I like to think our board is not NIMBY,” Board Chair Julio Peña said over the phone on Saturday. “The fact that we supported ‘City of Yes’ really shows that we want to see more housing development. But I think really the key is about affordability.”
The ‘City of Yes’ program is meant to create more housing throughout the city, but any increase of density historically tends to bring protest from local residents — some wary of new strains on local infrastructure and others concerned with an influx of lower-income neighbors.
If the mayor’s City of Yes is approved, it could mean the development proposed by Arrow gets even bigger — a point of concern for Windsor Terrace residents.
The community board’s disapproval is largely symbolic, but it comes as the application is poised to head into its next stage of review before city bodies like the City Planning Commission and elected officials who have a formal say in its approval.
Council Member Shahana Hanif, whose approval is crucial for the development to move forward under the Council’s tradition of member deference, has not officially said whether she would support the project, but told Gothamist this month that she would be looking at it “from a deeper affordability perspective.”