Category: Linked

This article could almost have been written today, but it is actually 25 years old. Its relevant today because Teachers College just released a report (pdf) documenting the importance of reasonably-priced (usually regulated) housing for artists. In much of north Brooklyn, the damage has already been done, as a generation of younger artists has been pushed out of the city by a combination of market forces, rezoning, and weakened rent regulation protections.

According to Politicker, Crain’s Insider (sub. req.) is reporting that Steve Levin, Vito Lopez’s chief of staff, is to enter the race for the 33rd Council district (David Yassky’s current seat). We’ve heard similar rumors, but have seen no official announcement.

Hawks in McCarren are not new – we saw one a year or two ago in a tree in the Abate playground (next to the pool). Hard to miss this guy, as he in the midst of devouring a pigeon, and the feathers were dropping everywhere.

Three weeks ago, Brownstoner met with the President of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and learned about a plan to use dredging from one area of the Yard to fill in an unused channel off Wallabout Bay, thus creating more Yard. Since then, Brownstoner has put up half a dozen posts reporting goings on at the Navy Yard (even crediting the print media when they got the news first).

Yesterday, the Post filed their report on the dredge and fill proposal. Remarkably, Brownstoner was not credited with the original story.

Its about time that someone in Albany stepped forward to end the TransGas charade.

Could someone please explain to me how the AIA’s proposed zoning text changes would increase building density? I’ve looked through the AIA’s presentation, and don’t see anything about added density – in fact, they even say (in really big red letters) that the proposals do not add FAR. But opponents are all over this as a way of increasing density as well as height.

On the question of height, I think the proposal to allow buildings to rise to the height of their nearest neighbor makes sense in general (and all told, a building could only go up 25% higher than allowed – which amounts to one additional story of streetwall in an R6B zone). It might make more sense if you were allowed to go up to the shorter of the two buildings adjacent, but I think the 25% cap will be pretty limiting.

Basically, zoning is a macro tool – it cannot accommodate every nuance in the existing built fabric. So the idea here is that while contextual zoning (height limits) is a good idea for a given neighborhood/block/street, it might not be a good idea for every development site neighborhood/block/street. Height is generally not the enemy – density is – and a four-story building in a block of five-story tenements can be less contextual that a building that completes the streetwall. (Of course a corollary to the macro not micro argument is that zoning shouldn’t need to make everyone whole – some sites can’t be maxed out under the allowable zoning, and that’s just the way things are.)

So until someone can explain to me how this or any of the other AIA proposals increases density, I have to think this might not be a bad proposal.

As one of the benefits of rezoning, the City agreed to remove the Greenpoint sludge tank by 2010. Now it looks like that won’t happen – at least not for another year or two. This little surprise was dropped on us only in the last week or two – as recently as last August, the City was saying that everything was on schedule.

An aside – many of the “newcomers” to the neighborhood look at this thing as an interesting structure – a cool opportunity for adaptive use, perhaps. All of the old timers hate it and want to see it gone. They look on it as a stark, ugly monument to decades of being shat upon (quite literally) by the city. While I do think its an interesting structure, on the whole I have to side with the old timers on this one.

This seems like an excellent idea – getting waste transfer trucks off Metropolitan and on to less residential/commercial streets like Vandervoort and Meeker.

Regina Meyer, who as head of City Planning’s Brooklyn office oversaw the Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, is going to be the next head of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Apparently, the Mayor could reduce congestion on the Williamsburg bridge by doing something about the quality of Williamsburg schools.