Bushwick's urban fabric hasn't changed much since the early 20th century, and Community Board 4 would like to keep it that way. (Photo courtesy Holly Dutton, Real Estate Weekly.)

The Williamsburg and Greenpoint rezonings in the 2000s allowed for tens of millions of square feet of new residential development—between 30 million and 32 million square feet, Vicki Been at NYU's Furman Center told The Observer—but for developers looking to meet the torrent of demand flooding into northern Brooklyn, it hasn't been anywhere near enough. Builders have been pushing into Bushwick for years—the last market cycle saw new development as far down the L train as the Halsey stop. Now, builders are starting to return to the frontier and the neighborhood, it seems, is ready to push back.

Councilwoman Diana Reyna said in October that she was ready to see the neighborhood rezoned to prevent the sort of luxury development that has washed up on the shores of Williamsburg, and now Brooklyn Community Board 4, representing Bushwick, has weighed in in favor of a rezoning as well.

"To help manage the growth and rebirth of the neighborhood," the members of CB4 wrote to Councilwoman Reyna, "we feel the time is right to begin rezoning," as reported by DNAinfo. The specifics of what they are asking for are unclear, though they did mention "down-zoning" and referenced the recent Bed-Stuy rezonings, which have for the most part restricted development in the neighborhood. Community Board 4 did not respond to The Observer's request for comment.

If the downzoning happens, it would continue the Bloomberg administration's strategy of focusing northern Brooklyn's growth on the waterfront, while limiting development in the built-up neighborhoods farther inland, leaving these vast tracts of land more or less as they were a century ago.

While anti-growth sentiment is strong in northern Brooklyn, those in the real estate industry remain skeptical that restricting growth would keep rents from rising or produce more affordable housing—the goal of Bushwick resident Rolando Guzman of Greenpoint- and Williamsburg-centric St. Nick's Alliance, who told DNAinfo, "The last thing Bushwick needs is high-rises. It needs affordable housing."

"I'm a big proponent of affordable housing," David Behin of MNS brokerage told The Observer. "But there's already a mechanism for affordable housing to come into the neighborhood." Mr. Behin, who runs MNS's investment sales and advisory division, was referring to the city's 80/20 program, which gives developers tax advantages and density bonuses in exchange for renting 20 percent of a building's units at below-market rates.

"Almost every developer I speak to, whether it's 10 to 15 units up to 500 units," said Mr. Behin, "they are all strongly considering doing 80/20s, and many, if not most, are "going forward with the program."

Matthew Cosentino, who works in investment sales at TerraCRG, was not ready to take a position on whether the neighborhood should be rezoned, but he was skeptical that clamping down on development would stop the upward march of prices. A rezoning, he said, "would affect how the area develops, but not what's happening in terms of the gentrification."

"We're kind of at a nice point right now where although prices have gone up," Mr. Cosentino continued, "it's still working okay for a large group [of longtime residents]. But I don't think it'll last forever, and I don't think the downzoning will change that."

Contextualism may be an opiate, but it feels so good.

As Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal at SHoP Architects, was unveiling the Southside Williamsburg master plan they designed for Two Trees, he evoked the image of Manhattan's skyline. "Just like in the dead center of New York," he told the assembled group of reporters, "we have this parabolic moment—there's this moment of exuberance that happens" as the towers rise on the waterfront, culminating in the towers at the Domino site. The tallest will reach 598 feet, or about 60 stories, making it taller than any other building in the borough.

"And that," he continued, "that's the stuff of postcards all around the world."

But despite the best efforts of SHoP and Two Trees, the plan does not succeed in aping the natural parabolic shape of an organic thicket of towers found in midtown, downtown or even downtown Brooklyn. Nor could it—Williamsburg's new planning regime, instituted in the 2005 rezoning and reinforced in 2009, makes sure of that.

Traditional downtowns grow around transit hubs, and are built by myriad different developers and architects, all working in competition. Through thoughtful zoning and market forces, the tallest towers sprout at the center of the transit network, with heights tapering off as you travel farther away.

But the new Williamsburg and Greenpoint skylines are more Bal Harbour than Brooklyn.

The towers form a narrow stockade on the shores of northern Brooklyn, a sort of Potemkin village of development to be admired from Manhattan. But behind them—nothing.

Dramatic density differentials are par for the course on the waterfront.

A block or two away from the old Domino refinery, the skyline plummets to near zero—most sites across the street are zoned exclusively for industrial use, and cannot be developed beyond one and two stories. There is no gradual downward gradient. "There's no way to hide that," admitted Mr. Chakrabarti of the disparity in heights.

It's not hard to see how it ended up this way. The rezonings took the path of least resistance between the pro-development wishes of the Bloomberg administration on the one hand, and the anti-growth attitudes of vast inland neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint on the other.

Manufacturing districts, where there weren't existing residents to bother, were upzoned. Development in established residential neighborhoods, on the other hand, was restricted.

The result is an awkward hybrid that pleases nobody. There isn't enough supply allowed to meet demand and temper the wave of gentrification shooting over northern Brooklyn, but what supply is allowed comes in the form of towers so out of place that they spark resentment throughout the community.

When the existing neighborhoods of New York were built before World War II, it was during a time when increases in demand were met by gradual but widespread redevelopment. Two- and three-story townhouses were replaced by six-story tenements, and when demand reached a fever pitch, as in Manhattan and a number of neighborhoods in brownstone Brooklyn, these were in turn redeveloped into grand apartment houses and skyscrapers. The redevelopment thinned as you got farther from the city center and subway stations, the result being the "parabolic moment" that Mr. Chakrabarti spoke of at the Domino unveiling—the true "stuff of postcards."

But today, the zoning code does not afford the opportunity for such organic development in the neighborhoods of northern Brooklyn.

Away from the glassy waterfront towers, much of northern Williamsburg is frozen in its vinyl-sided past.

With high-rises on the waterfront and row homes farther inland, the planning lacks provision for mid-rise buildings. Six stories or more, the traditional New York mid-rise smooths out the transitions between towers and townhouses, marrying the density needed to meet demand with a human scale that doesn't cast shadows for blocks.

But the standard new law tenement, a design that developers were eagerly building in the early 20th century in Southside Williamsburg, is now twice as dense as what's allowed in vast swaths of Northside, Greenpoint, East Williamsburg and Bushwick.

The word that leaps to mind is "capricious." Why are Manhattan-style high-rises acceptable west of Kent Avenue, while landowners across the street are not allowed to build so much as a single-family home, their land instead reserved for low-value industrial use?

And from a transit point of view, the planning makes little more sense. High-density building is allowed more than half a mile from the Bedford Avenue L, on the waterfront, but no housing is allowed at all on the blocks immediately adjacent to the Morgan Avenue stop. And it's the pre-war neighborhoods, which sprouted naturally closest to the L, where residential development was most restricted in the rezonings.

The development on the Brooklyn waterfront may look nice from Manhattan, but it's hard to see what it's given its home borough.

From a pro-development perspective, the amount of supply allowed is clearly insufficient to meet demand, evidenced by a near-tripling of housing costs in Williamsburg since 2004 and the wave of gentrification racing across Bushwick. Rents there recently jumped a stunning 17 percent in just 30 days, according to real estate brokerage MNS.

And far from allowing enough supply to bring down prices, the towers on the waterfront may have backfired. Despite being insufficient to bring down prices, the outsized heights on the river have helped foster the widespread impression of an overdeveloped Williamsburg. Anti-development sentiment has flared across northern Brooklyn, out of proportion to the relatively paltry number of new units.

Far from being a model for the rest of northern Brooklyn, the Williamsburg rezonings are seen as a cautionary tale.

Bushwick—soon served with the high prices of Williamsburg, but none of the new housing.

"We don't need the speculation that Bushwick is the next Williamsburg," Councilwoman Diana Reyna told The Wall Street Journal in October, angling for a rezoning that would limit development in Bushwick to low-rise structures. (Though given the pace of things, it might be more realistic to talk about preventing Broadway Junction and East New York from becoming the next Williamsburg.) Even Mayor Bloomberg doesn't dare rezone the manufacturing districts of East Williamsburg.

The location of the new development also raises concern. Newly built market-rate apartments in Brooklyn these days are almost never affordable, but some are less unaffordable than others. There is new construction in Bushwick, for example, that was overbuilt during the boom and is now within reach of upper-middle-class strivers. The waterfront, on the other hand, where most of the new housing is allowed, is reserved for the unabashedly wealthy.

None of this is the fault of SHoP or Two Trees, who, unlike some waterfront developers, had no role in the rezoning. But it's hard to see their piece of the waterfront as emerging any more organically. Even if Jed Walentas' waterfront towers are built to a higher quality than the Northside Piers—and there's every indication they will be—they are unlikely to be resented any less by the community.

This plan is so fetch. (Wikimedia Commons)

The joke about hipsters (well, one of many, many jokes about hipsters) is that they are pioneers, non-conformists. But out in Bushwick, they are following in the footsteps of more than a hundred of the city's neighborhoods: they want a rezoning.

A stones throw (not the hip hop record label) from the the McKibben Lofts and Roberta's, just across Flushing Avenue, a developer wants to transform the old Rheingold Brewery into a 10-building housing complex, a plan that has been kicking around since at least 2008. But according to The Wall Street Journal, this is Bushwick, so the rezoning has to be different, it has to be cool, with it, or at least that's what Councilwoman Diana Reyna wants.

She wants the rezoning of Bushwick to happen on different terms from a rezoning of Williamsburg and Greenpoint seven years ago. There, just a couple of stops west of Bushwick on the L train, a growing number of industrial buildings have given way to luxury condos and rental buildings.

"We don't necessarily need high rises. We don't need the speculation that Bushwick is the next Williamsburg," Ms. Reyna said. Instead, Ms. Reyna would like to see low-rise developments, a strong "affordable housing" component and the preservation of local jobs.

According to The Journal, the Rheingold redevelopment could pave the way for a larger rezoning of entire Bushwick neighborhood, which has seen spot development over the past decade but remains primarily comprised of low-rise apartment buildings and rowhouses. Encouraging development while protecting the neighborhood character, and more importantly its long-time residents, could prove a challenge. Because everybody knows gentrification is not cool.

The three represent the first major endorsements for Coffey of the campaign, and represent a concerted push by the Coffey campaign to enter the top tier of candidates in the five-person race. He also recently announced that he was pouring $2 million of his own money into the race.

One thing that all three of these endorsers have in common is that they are all aligned against Kings County Democratic chairman Vito Lopez. Lopez pushed the powerful county organization to support Kathleen Rice, so the move today could be read as (another) snub of him. Also, it is somewhat curious that neither of these three are backing State Sen. Eric Schneiderman nor Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, since both have been angling for the city vote and have garnered the bulk of the city's elected officials.

dfreedlander@observer.com

Shortly before 10 a.m. on Monday, a large group of Brooklynites sporting uniform yellow T-shirts collected on the steps of City Hall for a rally. As a few stragglers joined it, Councilwoman Diana Reyna, standing at the base of the group, aside U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez, gushed about the $1.2 billion housing development slated to rise on the former Domino Sugar refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront.

"The New Domino project has affordability, open space, and will create hundreds of new permanent jobs," Ms. Reyna said, reading from prepared remarks over a small podium with a microphone bank. "We have come to an equitable compromise benefiting all parties involved, and I strongly support the New Domino Sugar."

And with a few more remarks, just 10 minutes after it started, the rally was swiftly ended.

"We have a hearing that's going to start, and I don't know if there's any questions that have to be asked today-right now," Ms. Reyna said, overstaying her reserved time on the steps. "They're kicking us out."

Next up, minutes later, in the exact same spot, were Ms. Reyna's political adversaries, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic party chairman, and his protégé, the energetic freshman councilman Steve Levin.

The boyish-looking Mr. Levin pumped up a similar-size crowd with a new cast of characters, holding colorful signs that protested the New Domino development. 

"Affordable housing, YES! Forty Stories, NO!" he chanted. Mr. Levin had had it with overdevelopment. "We don't have any of the infrastructure in our neighborhood to withstand it, and we don't get to stay here. That's not fair."

Such is the debate over New Domino, the grove of brick-and-glass-speckled apartment towers planned for the site of the onetime sugar refinery just north of the base of the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn. The developer, CPC Resources, is in a fiery battle to win the City Council's approval to build up to 2,200 apartments on what is the largest remaining undeveloped parcel along the transforming Williamsburg waterfront.

But as with seemingly everything in the world of Brooklyn development, all of the issues that have dominated the dialogue over New Domino for at least three years-affordable housing, contextual development, community jobs-are hashed out under a cloud of political wrangling, an engaging sport of its own in Williamsburg.

In the Council, Mr. Levin is at the center, facing a test of whether he can exact sufficient concessions from CPC. He has used strong rhetoric to push for lower building heights and a greater number of affordable units, and has signaled to other council members that he would vote against the project if CPC doesn't budge.

If he cannot force such concessions, the question is whether Ms. Reyna and other members can mount enough of an insurrection to override Mr. Levin and approve the project. On land-use matters, the Council typically defers to the local member, in this case Mr. Levin.

THE NEW DOMINO development was destined for a fight the minute CPC bought the 11-acre refinery in 2004 for $55 million. Shortly thereafter, the city rezoned much of the rest of the Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront, the refinery excluded, to install residential towers in the place of the industrial shoreline-the rezoning itself a battle with critics who decried the influx of luxury condos.

CPC's parent company is a nonprofit overseen by many of the city's major financial institutions-it counts Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase as investors-and it develops significant amounts of affordable and market-rate housing in New York and elsewhere. It did not have small ambitions for New Domino, and crafted a plan for 2,200 apartments, first announcing its proposal in 2007.

Cognizant of the local elected officials' and community groups' appetite for affordability in the area, the developer offered to set aside 30 percent of the apartments-660 units-as below market rate, a high offer given that most developers stick to 20 percent.

Now, nearing a Council vote in July that will make or break the project, CPC finds itself at the opposite end of the table from Mr. Levin and his self-described mentor, Mr. Lopez, both of whom are pushing for affordability levels the developer says are unfeasible.

And at the same time, CPC has become enmeshed in a growing Brooklyn rivalry between Mr. Lopez and his allies on the one side, and on the other Ms. Reyna, Mr. Lopez's onetime chief of staff, who later turned on him. The two have been at odds now on the past three major development projects in north Brooklyn, going back to the city's planned 1,900-unit affordable development at Broadway Triangle in the southeast corner of Williamsburg, and including New Domino.

With Broadway Triangle, Ms. Reyna and a set of community groups (chiefly now on her side in New Domino) were in an opposite position, strongly pushing to block the development, which Mr. Lopez supported. Ms. Reyna and her allies won a surprisingly high 10 protest votes in the Council against the project, which was approved but is now being challenged in court over issues of racial discrimination.

On New Domino, both Mr. Levin and Mr. Lopez, the Assembly's housing committee chairman, who frequently pushes for more affordable housing, have staked out something of a traditional role for the local Council member, opposing the project in an attempt to get the developer to agree to a set of demands. The two chiefly want more affordable units (40 percent); fewer total apartments; lower tower heights (30 stories, not 40); and a developer-funded bus service to Manhattan. (The developer says the project, planned during the boom period, cannot afford all this.)

In recent days, Mr. Levin and Mr. Lopez have turned up the rhetoric criticizing the project-perhaps an effort to get more concessions or perhaps a sign that a deal may not come easy.

"We don't want to see a gold coast on the waterfront," Mr. Levin said. "I think we can get as much or more affordable housing from a smaller development."

BUT FOR MR. Levin, there is political pressure to strike a deal of some sort, both from the many Council members who simply want to see more affordable housing citywide, and from Ms. Reyna, who is not timid in her adversarial stance.

The councilwoman, who represents the neighboring district, charged that Mr. Levin is simply playing to the anti-development crowd and is blind to the benefits of the development.

"I think people have a very difficult time understanding what is the issue that would allow for Council Member Levin to be able to support the project, considering that there's so much being offered," she said by phone Monday. "The most affected constituency is within my district. He is catering to the needs of those that have opposed in the past any type of rezoning and who would want for perhaps the remaining areas ... to be rezoned for their self-interest in property value."

Ms. Reyna initially was against the development when it was first announced. She said she was ultimately swayed, however, by changes the developer made, including the addition of homeownership apartments.

Mr. Levin, asked about the skirmish with Ms. Reyna, declined to snipe, only taking a subtle jab at her change in position. "I have had the same position on this development," he said. "The point of taking a reasonable position is that it's easy to stand by because it does not change with the political winds."

However the negotiations go between Mr. Levin and CPC, the firm has clearly played the political game well up until this point.

CPC executives, led by senior vice president Susan Pollock, won over numerous religious and nonprofit groups, which lauded the affordability levels. CPC has hired at least four consultants to handle relations with the city, politicians and the neighborhood, including Kasirer Consulting and Geto & deMilly. All told, the developer has paid at least $1 million in lobbying expenses since 2006, according to filings.

As to where the project goes from here, CPC must now negotiate with Mr. Levin to see if there is, indeed, a deal in which he and Mr. Lopez are willing to participate in.

"We have engaged in incredibly intense community involvement for over five years," Ms. Pollock said. "We genuinely hope to engage in a dialogue with them in the coming days and reach accommodation on this, because it would be in no one's interest to see this go down."

ebrown@observer.com

Jason Horowitz (isn't he supposed to be in Washington?) has a piece about Obama's foreign policy speech writer, Ben Rhodes, who kept himself busy with some work… in New York:

From The Washington Post:

In the summer of 2001, a childhood friend, Karl Camillucci, offered Rhodes a summer gig on a New York City Council campaign. The candidate, Diana Reyna was a former aide to Vito Lopez, the boss of the local Democratic machine.

"He put together, you know, some data for us," Lopez said of Rhodes. "He just sort of assisted."

Lopez's legendary ability to micro-target voters from housing project to housing project was a revelation to Rhodes, who saw similar skills in Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. "It's the same thing as our primary," Rhodes said. "Understanding where the votes are."

On Sept. 11, election day, Rhodes was poll-watching on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn when the planes hit the twin towers. He had an unobstructed view.

"I remember walking around with him on September 12 on the Upper West Side, and you just sort of noted this transformation for him of wanting to become much more engaged in the world," said Schaeffer. "By the time he graduated he really knew he wanted to do something in Washington."

The crowd is mostly from Brooklyn and here in suport of the plan for Broadway Triangle, which is supoprted by Levin's old boss, Brooklyn Democratic County Leader Vito Lopez. The plan also has support from a number of Coucil members, but is opposed by another former Lopez aide, City Councilwoman Diana Reyna. Also, Councilwoman Rosie Mendez seems at least skeptical of the grassroots support advocates for the plan are claiming.

It's up for a vote today and I think will pass, but with a smaller margin than most other major land-use issue that hit the City Council recently.

"In the six years that I have been with the City Council, he has not met with the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus," said Letitia James of Brooklyn.

It's not for a lack of trying, Caucus members say.

On December 1, 2005, the Caucus sent a letter to the mayor. According to a Caucus-friendly source, the letter proposed a meeting "meant to be a general meeting discussing our legislative and programmatic priorities, including but not limited, to out-of-school-time RFP process."

In the fall of 2006, the Caucus sent another letter--a proposal to meet with the mayor to discuss newly released data on poverty. In response, the administration sent Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs. Some members, seeing Ms. Gibbs as an inadequate stand-in for the mayor, skipped the meeting.

"This administration makes Black, Latino and Asian members of the City Council irrelevant," said Diana Reyna, also of Brooklyn. "Having a relationship with the Speaker alone can't move our agenda. We have to be able to have a relationship with the mayor."

In November 2007, they sent a third letter. The letter read: "The members of the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus respectfully request to meet with you.

"We'd like to discuss affordable housing and the ongoing process of improving the relationship between the NYPD and communities of color."

Caucus members said they received no response.

The latest attempt was on January 16, when they asked to speak with Mr. Bloomberg about how to use "President Obama's stimulus package."

In that letter, read to me by the Caucus source, the group recounted its failed efforts to sit down with the mayor.

"Collaboration between yourself and the Caucus will help to ensure that New Yorkers of color will benefit from this plan," the letter said. "We recognize that you have an extraordinarily busy and ambitious schedule but we must adhere a sense of urgency to our request."

Further down in the letter, the group wrote: "We could not help but remember that we requested a meeting with you in 2006 and you elected to delegate the responsibility to Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs. With all due respect to Deputy Mayor Gibbs, she and any other potential surrogates, we must be explicit that this is a request to meet with you in your capacity as the mayor of the City of New York. We will not accept a meeting with anyone acting in your stead."

Again, Mr. Bloomberg did not meet with the Caucus. Members said there was no response to the letter in January.

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Stu Loeser, said, "We've met with members of the Caucus both individually and as a group, and of course will continue to do so." Mr. Loeser also said they have no record of having received the Caucus' latest letter.

City Councilman Eric Dilan, of Brooklyn, recalled one meeting Bloomberg had with the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus early in his first term.

"He was cool," said Mr. Dilan. "He was a new mayor at the time. Diversity at the fire department—that was the issue. It was a cordial meeting. I don't know that it bore fruit, but it was a cordial meeting. It was in the mayor's side of City Hall."

There's talk that the caucus may try to meet with the mayor again, when new members are sworn into office in January.

That's a 31-acre piece of property whose rezoning is supported by Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the Brooklyn County Democratic Leader.

Critics like City Councilwoman Diana Reyna said many residents in the area were left out of the public review process before the rezoning was drafted. Reyna, whom Lopez tried to oust in this year's Democratic primary and general election, is now helping lead the opposition to the rezoning.

I got to the hearing just before three women sat down to testify in favor of the rezoning, saying it will bring much-needed affordable housing to the area.

One of the women said the plans shouldn't be delayed "because of political interests," clearly a reference to Reyna.

Before the women left, City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez asked them a few questions, including their place of employment.

One by one, each of the three women said they worked for the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center. That's the one that was founded, and is run, by Lopez.

As the mailer clearly states in bold letters—and illustrates with a photo—Ms. Davila is the preferred candidate of Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who chairs the Brooklyn Democratic organization and who has made no secret of his dislike for Councilmember Reyna, his former chief of staff.

Ms. Davila's narrow loss in the primary put the powerful assemblyman in awkward spot, one that's apparently been resolved—if the mailer is any indication—by urging voters to "Vote Democrat on Row E," which is actually the Working Families Party line. The Democratic line, as you can see from the mailer's sample ballot, is Row A.

One other thing to notice: Where Ms. Reyna's name would appear on the sample ballot—in the Democratic column for the 34th District—the box is simply blank.