The Daily News reports this morning that TNS Development – the group that won the bid from the City to build affordable housing at the Greenpoint Hospital site – may not have the funding lined up to do the project. Specifically, TNS’s bid to the City included almost $4 million in funding from Borough President Marty Markowitz – money that Markowitz says he has not been asked for and probably wouldn’t give if he was asked for it:

‘I have not received any request for funding … nor have I made any commitment to this organization.’ [Markowitz] wrote in a letter this month to Housing Preservation and Development officials.
‘Your development staff should be familiar with my past … appropriations to realize that the sums being requested exceed the funds I have provided to individual housing projects during my tenure.’

This confirms what I have been hearing for some time now: that TNS probably does not – and will not – have the funding to do the project.

In the Greenpoint Gazette, Juliet Linderman recaps the current status of the Broadway Triangle rezoning. The judge hearing the case has continued the stay on the project in light of the ongoing investigations of Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Services Corp., one of the groups selected to develop the city-owned sites in the Triangle. In the meantime, the tax abatements that were to help fund it have expired, eliminating at least one reason for quick action.

I’ve said before that the courts – not the land-use process – are the proper place to decide the issues of who got what and who got left out – the process issues. But the plaintiffs suit with regard to the land-use issues is foolish.

the lawsuit wagers that the preliminary planning meetings were exclusive, and that the overall structure of the affordable housing complexes—low-density with a disproportionate number of multiple-room dwellings—are designed specifically for Hasidic families, and neglect the needs of black and Hispanic area residents.

“Low-density” in this case means the same density as every other rezoning that has happened over the past decade in North Brooklyn (OK, with one exception), and roughly the same density as all of the high-rise projects nearby (the tower in the park configuration of these projects yields a surprisingly low density). And the zoning – the R6s and R7s – does not dictate unit size. That is decided by the developers (which goes back to the issues that should be decided in court).

And for all the attention on Ridgewood Bushwick and UJO, it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of the Triangle is privately owned. If history is any guide, those sites will not be built with affordable housing, but they will be built to the maximum building envelope allowed under zoning. And to whatever price and configuration the market will bear.

Gotham Gazette has an excellent piece out about the changes to “fair share” proposed under the City’s Charter revision. In a nutshell, it will give neighborhoods like North Brooklyn (home to five or six City Sanitation garages, about half of the city’s commercial waste haulage, numerous brownfields, power plants and a sewage treatment plant).

Currently, the City Charter has a provision that is intended to take into account the impact of Sanitation garages, sewage treatment plants, and the like on a community. The provision is intended to encourage a more equitable distribution of city facilities across community districts. But the current Charter provisions only require that the City take into account facilities on City-owned sites, leaving out the environmental and social impacts happening on privately-owned land. The proposed Charter revision would take into account all “state, federal and private facilities that handle solid waste and transportation in the city facilities map”.

This is a big step forward. It certainly is not a perfect fix – the fair-share provisions only require review, not an actual fair-share distribution (witness the City’s recent approval of expanded Sanitation facilities in CD1), and the new provisions don’t take into account all impacts on privately-owned land – but as Gotham Gazette says, it is a good first step.

The City’s draft waterfront plan calls new public access at Williamsburg Bridge Park (5) and the former BRT power plant site (6).

The Department of City Planning has released its draft comprehensive waterfront plan (aka Vision 2020), and it has a lot for North Brooklyn to get excited about (and quite a few things that reiterate past promises).

The plan identifies a number of areas for new waterfront access, including the Williamsburg Bridge Park site just south of Domino, which is currently occupied by two city agencies that are not providing waterfront-dependent services (“explore potential for open space under bridge dependent on finding relocation sites for current DOT and DCAS facilities”). The reuse of this site was first proposed a few years ago by then-Councilmember David Yassky, and it got some added traction during the Domino rezoning. (The Domino rezoning will result in a reduction of access to open space on a per capita basis; the creation of a large waterfront park right next door would reverse that.) Since the Domino rezoning, NAG and other local groups have been looking into how to jumpstart the conversion of this site into public park space.

The City’s waterfront plan also calls for an expansion of public access (visual and physical) to the Navy Yard’s waterfront, and for public waterfront access at the former BRT (Con Ed) power plant site at Division and Kent. Even more interesting is that the plan calls for this site to be industrial or commercial (“explore options for redevelopment for industrial and/ or commercial uses with opportunities for public access if appropriate”), rather than residential. Meaning that the site is envisioned more as an extension to the Navy Yard than as an extension to the South Williamsburg residential waterfront north of Division (the Kedem, Schaefer and Certified sites).

The plan also includes new ideas for Newtown Creek, including a boat launch at Manhattan Avenue. (And some old ideas
yet to be followed through on.)

The plan also has some new ideas for Newtown Creek, which largely boils down to public access and residential/commercial uses at the mouth of the creek and continued industrial uses with public access (like the NCWWTP nature walk) further upstream. The plan calls for residential and commercial development of the Long Island City waterfront (with public access to the creek), opposite Manhattan Avenue, as well as improvements to public access and a boat launch at the Manhattan Avenue street-end. (The boat launch could be referring to the proposed Greenpoint Boathouse at GMDC’s Manhattan Avenue facility – if it isn’t, it should be.) There are also rather fuzzy calls for public access of some sort beneath the Greenpoint Avenue and Kosciusko Bridges.

It should be noted that the plan also reiterates a number of past promises that the City has made to Greenpoint and Williamsburg – promises that are nice to see reiterated, but would better appreciated if implemented. These include the development of 65 Commercial Street as a park, the development of the Greenpoint Lumber for residential use, the redevelopment of the India and Java Street piers and the acquisition and build-out of Bushwick Inlet Park. All of these are promises that the City made as part of the 2005 rezoning that remain unfulfilled (the India/Java Piers have recently taken on a controversy of their own).

In all, though, there are a lot of new and very positive ideas being put forth in the City’s plan. The plan, which is part of a decennial review of the waterfront that City Planning is required to undertake, will be reviewed at a public hearing on October 12, after which it will be issued as official City policy.

via Brownstoner