Last year, in making the case for the rezoning of East New York, the Department of City Planning tried to allay fears of gentrification by arguing that, thanks to the area’s weak market, the neighborhood would likely not see any market-rate development for the near term.
Instead, conditions would be such that developers would use the city’s subsidy programs to build affordable housing. As a result, the administration predicted that, together with the affordable housing to be built on public land, something like half the units produced as a result of the rezoning would be affordable, or 2,300 units.