Landmarking vs. Zoning: Lessons from Our Neighbors

In comments, Halden from Brooklyn11211 reminds us of an important lesson. When you lock the front door, remember to lock the back door. Truly preserving the character of Carroll Gardens requires a two-track approach, a belt and suspenders approach (enough metaphors?): (1) downzoning and (2) landmarking.

Downzoning limits the height of development; landmarking preserves the look and feel of a community by preventing ugly, non-contextual crap-boxes from being deposited in the nabe.

From Halden's link:

A word of warning to our friends in Carroll Gardens: a lot of the crap that is going up in Greenpoint & Williamsburg is consistent with the contextual zoning that was implemented in 2005 (R6A and R6B, predominantly). Its shorter crap, but its still crap. And other than landmarking, there's not a lot you can do about that.

I strongly suggest reading the entire post. I know that there are people who are against landmarking, and I can respect that. But I am for it, and I will work with my neighbors to make it happen. Interested in helping out? Drop me a line. Vince Favorito has been working tirelessly on landmarking and he can always use more hands.