What Border Dispute?

Here’s an easy trivia question: In which Brooklyn neighborhood is the Barclays Center arena located? If you answered Prospect Heights, editors at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal would probably agree with you. But members of Brooklyn Community Board 2 might not. On Wednesday, April 9, CB2 voted to recommend its southern border be moved from Pacific Street to Dean Street between Vanderbilt Avenue and Fourth Avenue. The move was justified as placing the entire Atlantic Yards footprint within CB2, which includes Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Boerum Hill. What’s going on here, and does it matter to Prospect Heights?

First, a little background. The New York City Charter divides the city into a series of community districts, each overseen by a Community Board. The purpose of creating these districts is to align municipal services with the communities they serve, and encourage the participation of community residents in City government. Community district boundaries are defined so as to “coincide with historic, geographic and identifiable communities from which the city has developed.” The schedule for community district boundary revisions set forth in the Charter no doubt influenced CB2’s move. The revised Charter adopted in 1994 allows adjustment of the boundaries between community districts every ten years.

Most of its residents would likely agree with the boundaries of Prospect Heights cited by the Times as being Flatbush Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Washington Avenue to the east, and Eastern Parkway to the south. It may therefore come as a surprise for some to learn that area is presently split between three community boards, with most of Prospect Heights falling within Community Board 8, but a corner of the west being in Community Board 6 and a sliver of the north being in Community Board 2. To make things more complicated, in 2012 the boundaries between the NYPD’s 77th Precinct and 78th Precinct were changed in response to security concerns arising from the opening of Barclays Center. Prospect Heights west of Vanderbilt Avenue is now policed by the 78th Precinct; east of Vanderbilt, Prospect Heights remains covered by the 77th Precinct. Just as the Atlantic Yards project has been used to justify a move of the boundary between community boards 2 and 8, the change in policing boundaries has also led to some calls for a return to “coterminality” with community board boundaries, which would mean extending the eastern boundary of Community Board 6 to Vanderbilt Avenue.

To understand if reducing either the northern or western boundaries of Community Board 8 makes sense, one must decide whether administration of municipal services or citizen participation in local government should take priority in defining community districts. Although aligning municipal services with acknowledged neighborhood boundaries is a fine goal, it is hard to justify placing that above engagement of neighborhood residents in their community’s future, particularly when, in the case of police services, the Charter provides a process through which precinct boundaries can be adjusted independent of community districts when public safety requires it.

For instance, I don’t know why the border between community districts 2 and 8 west of Vanderbilt Avenue now runs along Pacific Street instead of Atlantic Avenue, but it didn’t matter very much when the only residents of the blocks between Pacific and Atlantic were LIRR trains. Now the eventual construction of housing in the portion of the Atlantic Yards site east of 6th Avenue raises the question as to where the future residents will be best represented when community input on land use, economic development and education is required. Given the challenges of integrating Atlantic Yards into a much less dense existing neighborhood, it would seem obvious that the residents of the Atlantic Yards high-rises should be in the same community board as their low-rise neighbors. The need to integrate also will be especially acute for those towers planned to be built along Vanderbilt Avenue, the “main street” of Prospect Heights. For these reasons, the CB2/CB8 border should be moved not further south to residential Dean Street, but north to Atlantic Avenue, an arterial road that is the natural division between Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.

I’m also not sure why the boundary between community districts 6 and 8 jogs east at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Bergen Street to follow Sixth until Pacific Street, but my guess is that it was placed there in order to stretch district 6 to reach the 78th Precinct station house, which serves that district. Pushing that border further east to Vanderbilt Avenue to restore coterminality with police services might represent a minor bureaucratic convenience, but it would be a major disadvantage to consistent neighborhood policy in other areas. For instance, Vanderbilt Avenue bisects the Prospect Heights Historic District. Since property owners must have major plans reviewed by the local community board before being heard by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, separate community board committees would be passing on projects in the west and east sections of the district, potentially allowing the Historic District to develop differently on each side of Vanderbilt Avenue. Community boards must also approve exceptions to the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Law’s “500-foot rule” which limits concentration of bars in a neighborhood. Considering the pace at which new restaurants and bars are opening on Vanderbilt Avenue, it’s easy to understand why splitting this responsibility down the middle of the street between two community boards would be a bad idea. Community board support has also been important for other community-wide initiatives like the recently-approved Neighborhood Slow Zone. It’s possible to see how efforts like the NSZ could still proceed with oversight from two community boards, but an extra board wouldn’t make them any easier to get off the launch pad. Let’s also keep in mind that community district 6 already covers Park Slope, Gowanus, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. After an expansion into Prospect Heights, it might be hard for the new area to get much focus from Community Board 6. And it would likely take a few years before Prospect Heights residents were appointed to CB6 (several are now active on Community Board 8).

Instead of justifying an expansion of the CB6 boundaries, the 2012 change to the 77th/78th precinct boundaries to accommodate Barclays Center should make the issue of coterminality moot. It is no longer necessary to gerrymander the 78th Precinct’s headquarters into community district 6. Prospect Heights’ natural western border of Flatbush Avenue can be restored to community district 8 between Grand Army Plaza and Atlantic Avenue, while leaving in place the 78th Precinct’s responsibility for policing the area around the arena as well as the rest of CB6.

So while 2014 presents an opportunity to revisit community district boundaries, that opportunity is to expand the area of community district 8 to include the entire neighborhood of Prospect Heights. The current carve-outs on the north and west sides of district 8 can no longer be justified as being consistent with the intent of the Charter. And moving them further into Prospect Heights would lead to disenfranchisement of neighborhood residents and business owners. Economic, demographic and land use changes are coming too quickly in Prospect Heights to let that happen. Let’s hope that when the dust settles on this debate, our one community will finally get one Community Board.

Twitter: @GibVeconi