The Council’s Land Use Committee voted 12-6 in favor of rezoning the Broadway Triangle, opening the way for a major redevelopment of the vacant site.

The approval included minor modifications to increase open space for the project. The full council must vote on the project later this month, and is expected to approve the measure as well.

The site, a large parcel of largely open land in Williamsburg, has been the grounds of a long-running development fight pitting the city against a coalition of community groups with an alternative vision for the area.

The city’s department of Housing Preservation and Development’s rezoning plan would allow for roughly 1,850 new apartments. Almost half would be set aside as affordable housing.

The Broadway Triangle Community Coalition (BTCC), a group of area organizations, has called for more than twice the number of apartments and a much larger affordable housing component for the site. Council members seemed to hear BTCC’s plea, though in the end not enough voted to block the measure.

Still, Assemblyman Vito Lopez said in an interview, the six no votes were unusual given that outgoing Councilman David Yassky, whose district covers the site, threw his support behind the project. In most land use cases, few if any council members vote against the home councilmember’s position.

Lopez, the assembly’s housing committee chairman, said the rezoning would bring much-needed affordable housing.

“Right now we have an affordable housing crisis not only in Williamsburg and Bushwick,” said Lopez, who represents the area, “but in all of North Brooklyn.”

Critics of the plan were disappointed with the vote, but said they won’t stop fighting the project in coming weeks. The BTCC is also planning to file a lawsuit to block the project, perhaps as early as the end of the month.

“We’re still going to continue rallying around our issues on this,” said Juan Ramos, BTCC’s president. Opponents of the rezoning, led by Councilwoman Diana Reyna, among others, have long contended the planning process excluded major segments of the surrounding population.

Lopez, who has supported the project since its inception five years ago, dismissed the claim, saying that “no project has had so much community support and participation.”

He also criticized Reyna for meddling with the project, which lies just outside of her district. “She is coming out of her district to dictate, or try to dictate, what goes on in someone else’s district,” Lopez said. “That’s highly unusual.”

Reyna could not be reached for comment vote.

The full council is expected to vote on the bill in the coming weeks, perhaps at a stated meeting scheduled for December 21.