Gowanus Oversight group focuses on Wyckoff Gardens and the Gowanus Houses, by Oscar Fock

The Gowanus Oversight Task Force met for its second quarterly meeting of the year on Thursday evening, June 27. This time around, the public meeting tackled the issues of “community resources” and “streets and safety.”

This task force took life as a condition of the Gowanus rezoning, which allowed for the building of high rise residential buildings in the formerly low-rise, mixed use neighborhood which had been somewhat similar to Red Hook. The group is peopled with local volunteers and led by the former head of the SBIDC, a business group.

About 50 community members were in attendance in the auditorium of Public School 133. The city also had many officials there, including representatives from the departments of Youth & Community Development, Design and Construction, City Planning, Parks and Recreation, and Transportation, as well as the Housing Authority, NYCHA.

This meeting focused on upgrades at the local public housing developments, which were promised  $200 million of NYC tax money as a condition of allowing private real estate developers to profit from the rezoning.

The Department of Design and Construction announced that the renovations of the Gowanus Community Center, which is part of the Gowanus Houses and has been closed for nearly two decades, are nearing completion. The agency expects it will be open to the public in late summer or early fall, pending an approved fire inspection.

The other community center poised for renovations is Wyckoff Gardens Community Center. An additional 1,700 square feet will be added at an estimated cost of around $4.5 million. The renovations are expected to be complete by December 2025.

Presentations on the two centers sparked the most intense discussions of the night. Members of the task force’s housing committee raised concerns about lack of community engagement, and a resident complained about delays in reopening the Gowanus Center and the city’s lack of transparency on the delays.

“What I heard is a lot of seniors are really excited about July, and now it seems like it’s going to be all the way to September. Have you made the community aware that there is a delay?” he asked the city representatives.

Encouraging news came from the Brooklyn Public Library. In March 2023, it was announced that the Pacific branch, which opened its doors in 1904, would be renovated to, among other things, become fully accessible to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. At Thursday’s meeting, the representatives shared that the renovations, which will cost $34 million, survived Mayor Eric Adams’ 2023 budget cuts and are moving forward. No date was provided for when the renovations will be finished.

During the discussion on community resources, plans were also shared for a renovation of the Old Stone House on Third Street between Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue. The plans include an additional structure that will sit where a pavilion used to be.

“We think that it really complements the historic nature of the building,” the Department of Parks and Recreation representative said. She also told the audience that the Parks Department has all its funding for this project despite cuts in the city budget.

Opinions on the meeting varied among attendees, and a recurring sentiment was that the agency representatives delivered a mixed bag.

“I feel like there’s more conversation to be had about these issues so that people can be engaged in our community and understand what’s happening,” said Kellie Marty, a resident of Gowanus Houses.

“It sounds like people are getting some of their basic needs met with these community center projects, but some of the overall function of them as open social space is missing,” said Celeste LeCompte, a member of the task force’s open space and waterfront access committee.

Clearly, many were there primarily for updates on the neighborhood’s community resources. As the first half of the meeting ended and the task force shifted focus to traffic and safety, some community members left.

A team from the Department of Transportation, including Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Keith Bray, spent their time recapping the agency’s current projects in the area, including its plans for increasing pedestrian and cyclist safety. At the intersection of Smith Street and Ninth Street, the bike lanes along Ninth Street will be raised to sidewalk level.

Bray had no update on the Carroll Street bridge, which has been closed since 2021. However, he highlighted that his agency is looking at truck traffic on Third Avenue as part of a more extensive study of traffic to and from the growing number of last-mile warehouses in Red Hook.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that DOT’s studies on the trucks will be beneficial,” said LeCompte.

“I think that the scope and scale of the development in Gowanus is totally out of whack,” said Arnie Grad, who lives in the area and also sits on the open space and waterfront access committee. “My concern is that it’s changed the neighborhood irreparably.”

Oscar Fock

I’m a New York-based journalist from Sweden. I write about the environment, how climate change impacts us humans, and how we are responding.