Even though a Community Board and the City Council approved the rezoning an industrial area in Williamsburg for low-rise housing, a judge blocked any development in order to hear a lawsuit claiming that the process to rezone the area favored whites and Hasidic Jews over other minorities. Now, the NY Times reports that Justice Emily Jane Goodman scheduled a hearing next month "to determine whether the city's plan...would essentially foster segregation." more ›

A day after the City Council approved to rezone a mostly industrial stretch of land on the border of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvessant, a State Supreme Court judge ordered an injunction. According to CityRoom, "It came in response to a lawsuit the lawyers filed on Tuesday, claiming, among other things, that the process that led to the rezoning excluded and discriminated against minority groups around the Broadway Triangle site, including blacks and Latinos, violating the Constitution and federal and state civil rights laws." Now any work on the site will have to wait until a hearing in March. more ›

City Council approved a residential rezoning plan for the so-called Broadway Triangle — a largely industrial swath of land on the border of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvessant where developmental interests have pitted neighborhoods, religious groups, and ethnic groups against each other. The Council voted 36 to 10 with four abstentions in favor of the rezoning, which will allow the construction of low-rise buildings containing 1,851 units of housing, more than 800 for people with low and moderate incomes. Courier Life reporter Aaron Short captures some of the drama from inside City Hall on his blog. more ›

As promised, a coalition of Brooklyn community groups filed a lawsuit against the city yesterday over plans to turn a 31-acre area zoned for manufacturing on the border of Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy into 1,895 low-rise apartments—905 of which would charge below-market rate rents. Opponents say the housing complex would be racially and religiously discriminatory because it features too many three- and four-bedroom apartments, which would "disproportionately accommodate the Hasidic community's large families." Critics also want the buildings to be much taller, and accuse the Buildings Department of capping them at eight stories to accommodate Orthodox Jews who can't ride elevators on Shabbos. A lawyer for the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition tells the Daily News, "This process was dramatically racial. It acquiesces to the needs of the Hasidic community." But Councilman David Yassky, a supporter of the development plan, dismisses the allegations, explaining, "I want more housing, but I don't want skyscrapers in the middle of Brooklyn." The City Council will vote on the plan after the City Planning Commission casts their vote, and like other big projects, the use of eminent domain is becoming another heated issue. more ›

In a highly contentious July decision, Brooklyn's Community Board 1 voted to convert a 31-acre area zoned for manufacturing on the border of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant into 1,895 low-rise apartments—905 of which would charge below-market rate rents. Opponents say the buildings would be too small and accuse the city of awarding housing contracts to non-profits tied to influential Assemblyman Vito Lopez—the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and the Bushwick Ridgewood Senior Citizens Council—without putting the sites up for bid. more ›