The New York City Council on Wednesday approved a major plan to open 21 blocks in central Brooklyn to new development, a transformation that aims to address the city’s worsening housing crisis by making way for some 4,600 new apartments.

The plan targets a part of Atlantic Avenue in Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant where decades-old city regulations have become an emblem of New York City’s challenges in building new housing.

Areas zoned for manufacturing as far back as 1961 left little room for residential development as neighborhood needs shifted, leaving the area pockmarked by vacant lots, warehouses and auto shops that could not be repurposed as housing.

Because the neighborhoods are close to Prospect Park and many subway lines, they’ve continued to draw residents, pushing rents up and fueling gentrification. Several one-off, luxury apartment buildings have sprouted in between industrial and manufacturing lots, a haphazard upheaval that has angered local leaders.

The City Council’s approval addresses several of the issues, and reflects how city officials are, at least in piecemeal fashion, making way for growth in the face of a housing shortage that is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of homes.

“There’s definitely been a culture shift in the last couple of years around housing,” said Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, who represents much of the area and who helped lead the plan’s development. “I think people understand a little bit better the reality of market pressures, and the housing and affordability crisis that is crunching everyday New Yorkers.”