Tuesday, March 3, 2009

CoWNA General meeting: March 19

The next General meeting of the Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood association will be on Thursday March 19th at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be at:

Jalopy Theater and School of Music
315 Columbia St. between Woodhull St. and Hamilton Ave.

The agenda will include:
  • Reports from all standing committees.
  • Update on neighborhood re-zoning request (see also recent announcement).
  • Latest news about waterfront development and usage proposals.
  • Guest speakers (to be announced).
Please tell your friends and neighbors! Come out and get involved in the future of our neighborhood.

**Announcement** Columbia Waterfront district re-zoning request approved!

As most CoWNA members already know, our association has been working very hard for over a year to urge City Planning to re-zone most of our neighborhood from R6 to a contextual zone such as R6B. What this means is that future development in our neighborhood will have a strict height limit and prohibit 'as of right' development proposals that could be 8 or 10 stories or even higher.

We have been notified that Amanda Burden, Director of City Planning, has supported our request and that the Columbia Waterfront neighborhood will be included in the Carroll Gardens re-zoning process as it progresses. We are very pleased and thankful that City Planning has recognized our hard work and sincerely listened to the opinions and desires of the residents of our neighborhood.

I want to thank Norman Cox and the rest of the Land Use committee members who have done so much work to accomplish this. They have done hours upon hours of research, physically surveyed every building and lot in the entire neighborhood, and finally, created a logical and persuasive document to present to City Planning. We also would like to express our appreciation for the support we received from area activists and local representatives and their staffs.

Finally, I would like to say that this great news helps to show that with effort and the involvement of our whole neighborhood, together we can accomplish things and make the Columbia Waterfront district a better and more vibrant place to life and work.

Mike Webster
President, CoWNA