A 13-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue in Central Brooklyn dominated by gas stations, storage facilities and auto services can now be home to thousands of new homes in apartment buildings, thanks to a rezoning the City Council approved Wednesday.

The rezoning, part of the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, has the potential to yield about 4,600 new apartments to the area, which spans the neighborhoods of Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. About 40% of the apartments will be affordable, through set-aside mandates and the development of city-owned sites. 

Many of the new buildings will be permitted to include ground-floor commercial spaces below the apartments.

The stretch of Atlantic Avenue, from Vanderbilt Avenue on the west side to Nostrand Avenue on the east, is a mostly treeless strip that sees a heavy volume of traffic and the above-ground emergence of Brooklyn’s Long Island Railroad line to Jamaica.

“For decades, this area has been frozen in place by antiquated zoning that restricted housing and encouraged a low-slung, car- and truck-centric streetscape, despite its great access to public transit and jobs,” City Planning Commissioner Dan Garodnick told THE CITY. “So we are incredibly excited about this opportunity to bring forth housing, jobs and infrastructure improvements that will benefit New Yorkers for decades to come, and transform an imposing thoroughfare into a more dynamic and inviting place.”

Past manufacturing zoning restricted housing that could be built along the corridor, which is squeezed between fast-growing residential areas that have seen significant displacement of lower-income residents by well-heeled newcomers. The rezoning also touches on some blocks surrounding Atlantic Avenue.

“With this community-led rezoning, we’re tackling several major crises facing our city: a housing shortage, dangerous streets and the urgent need for good-paying jobs accessible to all New Yorkers, regardless of education level,” said Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who represents parts of Crown Heights and Prospect Heights and was a key influence on the zoning plan. (She had rejected an individual rezoning request to build new housing on a vacant lot in the neighborhood, delaying new projects until the area rezoning was complete.)

In opening the floodgates to high-density housing, the rezoning boosts property values — including for the warehouse housing auto shops at the corner of Classon Avenue where the iconic billboard for Sherita, the pink dinosaur advertising fuel oil, stood until last year.

The ownership of 1025 Atlantic Avenue is in dispute, with heirs of the late former owner alleging that the current owner obtained the property illegally. It is now owned by a limited liability corporation after being purchased at a forced sheriff’s sale by a buyer with a criminal past who used an alias for the transaction, an investigation by THE CITY found.

The rezoning could allow a building up to 18 stories high on the Sherita site, and quadruple or quintuple its value, according to Dan Marks, CEO of TerraCRG, a Brooklyn-based commercial real estate brokerage.

“That’s obviously a benefit to longtime property owners who held on to their properties for a very long time, but it’s a bigger benefit to the community as a whole,” Marks said. “This neighborhood is going to go from sort of this sleepy, low-density industrial zone to this very vibrant community.”

Marks said the rezoned in 2021 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio from manufacturing to residential, similar to the Atlantic Avenue plan — might be an indicator of how the new development in Central Brooklyn will proceed.

The plan also includes a local workforce development program; a study on the future of the Bedford Atlantic Armory, which is currently a men’s shelter; $215 million for projects to improve street safety and calm traffic, upgrade the Franklin Avenue C/Shuttle subway station and nearby areas, including playgrounds; and $1.2 million for neighborhood tenant and legal services. Developers who add public open space to their projects can build bigger buildings.

The Atlantic Avenue rezoning is just one in a series of citywide spearheaded by the istration of Mayor Eric Adams to spur more housing development. 

Councilmember Chi Ossé, who represents parts of Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy and also influenced the outcome, said the plan “meets the urgency of the moment” with a “large and necessary amount of new homes” to add to the neighborhood’s supply.

With the plan, Ossé added, “we prove that Brooklyn’s future can be abundant, equitable, prosperous, alive and ours.”