Report Details Williamsburg-Greenpoint Job Losses, Gentrification & More

The 144-page report about Williamsburg and Greenpoint rezoning and gentrification from the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers is not the kind of reading you bring to the beach on Saturday. Within the pages of the study conducted for the New York City Community Council, however, are some fascinating pieces of information about what has been going on in North Brooklyn. Consider for instance that 3,800 units of housing have or will soon enter the market in 84 new construction or rehabilitated developments in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, that the units are largely aimed at high-income single people or couples without children and that the prices range from $199,000 to $2.37 million. Or this passage:

Between 1991 and 2002 Greenpoint lost 628 manufacturing jobs and 630 industrial jobs; Williamsburg lost 2,802 manufacturing jobs and 2,353 industrial jobs. While this would be a significant finding on its own, it is even more telling that no other nearby North Brooklyn neighborhood experienced the same kind of loss. This suggests that the industrial sector overall was stable and that something specific was happening in Greenpoint-Williamsburg. The culprit was the strong housing market putting pressure on Greenpoint-Williamsburg.

The report also found that residential prices jumped from an average of $538,000 to $638,000 between April and July 2005. Most interesting of all, however, is the finding that incentives for including affordable housing in "inland" parts of the neighborhoods have failed to yield any significant amount of housing. oNYTurf has both a post about the report and links to two different sites where the full document can be downloaded. Go there if you want it!