Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to make way for development, including apartment towers, along the now-industrial waterfront in Williamsburg and Greenpoint will be met with strong opposition from community groups when it is taken up in the City Council today.

The mayor’s plan to rezone more than 184 blocks of Brooklyn waterfront land would allow developers to erect large buildings along the two miles stretch in exchange for including a certain amount of lower- and moderately priced units.

The plan is part of the mayor’s larger effort to rezone neighborhoods throughout the city to curb rampant overdevelopment or spur new growth. In this case, the city is trying to develop an underutilized area and create an enclave of apartments, stores, offices, and parks. The neighborhood offers picturesque views of the Manhattan skyline, and the plan calls for an esplanade along the East River.

Community groups have been fighting the plan aggressively for about two years, saying that the mayor’s proposal does not include enough “affordable housing” or park space and that tall luxury apartments will destroy the character of their neighborhood and force out the artists and residents who now live there. Yesterday, a group of about 20 of those opponents gathered outside City Hall with large protest signs to demand that the plan be changed or scrapped.

“This rezoning is going to take every piece of land that could ever become park land and put towers on it,” a member of the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks & Planning, Joseph Vance, said. “There will never, ever, ever be an additional square inch of green space of parkland if the population will continue to grow. This is absolutely unconscionable and should not be allowed.”

The North Brooklyn Alliance, a coalition of 43 organizations formed to ensure that the community concerns were incorporated in the rezoning plan, wants the city to guarantee that 40% of all of the housing is “affordable,” and that new construction on the waterfront is limited to 20 stories. The alliance is also calling for additional park space and for assurances that 4,000 local manufacturing jobs be preserved.

A Brooklyn member of the City Council, David Yassky, said yesterday that he hoped that the Bloomberg administration would agree to changes, but that if not the council would have to “chuck” the plan.

“We may finally get the mayor to see the light and give us a plan that is not for the developers, but is for the neighborhood,” the Democrat said. If the administration doesn’t agree to changes, Mr. Yassky said: “We’ll wait for a new mayor and a new City Planning Commission and we’ll do the waterfront right.”

Bloomberg administration officials have said requiring developers to build too high a percentage of affordable housing will deter them from building at all. It could, they said, jeopardize all development and stymie the construction of badly needed housing. They have estimated that at least 2,300 of the 10,000 new apartments will be affordable – a number that has been increased since the plan was first floated.

Critics of the mayor’s plan said they are opposed not to development but to “the kind of development that overwhelms what makes Williamsburg and Greenpoint special.”

The owner of a Williamsburg gallery called The Change You Want to See Gallery, Becca Economopoulos, said: “There is good development and there is bad development. Bloomberg’s plan represents bad development.” The problem, she said, is that it flouts community concerns.

The plan was rejected by the local community board and the borough president, Martin Markowitz, but both serve only an advisory role. It has already been approved by the City Planning Commission and needs approval from the council.

The chairman of the council’s Committee on Zoning, Tony Avella, said the mayor’s plan was strong but could be improved by taking into account residents’ concerns. Mr. Avella said negotiations would be a “balancing act.”