In yesterdays papers there were a host of good articles out on the Domino rezoning, the City Council hearing and the politics at play. In no particular order, here are the must-reads.

In the Observer, Eliot Brown’s Domino Theory: Brooklyn Dems Face Off Over Mammoth Williamsburg Project:

The New Domino development was destined for a fight the minute CPC bought the 11-acre refinery in 2004 for $55 million. Shortly thereafter, the city rezoned much of the rest of the Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront, the refinery excluded, to install residential towers in the place of the industrial shoreline-the rezoning itself a battle with critics who decried the influx of luxury condos.

Actually, if the developers had stuck to the density levels of the 2005 zoning, they might well have had the support of the community board and might not be having this fight now. The community openly voiced its concern over density and equity with the 2005 zoning from day one. When Domino says that they listened to the community, what they mean is that they listened to the people in the community they wanted to hear.

However the negotiations go between Mr. Levin and CPC, the firm has clearly played the political game well up until this point.

CPC executives … won over numerous religious and nonprofit groups, which lauded the affordability levels. CPC has hired at least four consultants to handle relations with the city, politicians and the neighborhood… All told, the developer has paid at least $1 million in lobbying expenses since 2006, according to filings.

That’s more than they have set aside for their local job training programs.

In the Times, Charles Bagli has a lengthy piece entitled 2 Sides Clash at City Hall Over Domino Housing Plan:

[As] the $1.4 billion project nears the end of the city’s often unpredictable approval process, its fate is subject to Brooklyn’s fractious politics, a weak economy and a once working-class community exhausted by the pace of luxury development during the real estate boom. Critics say the benefit of moderate-income housing would be outweighed by the project’s tall buildings, densely packed on 11 acres, and its impact on a crowded subway station nearby.

Although the City Planning Commission has approved the project, known as New Domino, it is unclear how much political muscle the Bloomberg administration is exerting on its behalf as the City Council debates the merits of developing the site. The Council and the mayor have the final say on the plan.

And

“We are here today to support the Domino project because we need affordable housing,” said Yolanda Coco, a tenant advocate for the group East Brooklyn Churches…

Christopher H. Olechowski, chairman of Community Board 1, which includes the site, disagrees. “People are pretty much fed up,” he said. “Our neighborhood is inundated.”

Interesting that none of the supporters Bagli quotes are actually from Williamsburg or Greenpoint.

And Bloomberg’s (the news, not the Mayor) architecture critic James Russell weighs in with his thoughts on the architectural merits of the project in Domino’s $1.3 Billion Makeover Hits Trouble:

The New Domino tries to do right by the community, yet it comes at some compromise to the design. Taking away all the pipes, chutes and tanks that now envelope the refinery building will leave a prettified oversized lump, depriving it of the raw power of brute utility. The park, designed by landscape architect Quennell Rothschild & Partners LLP, has been painstakingly negotiated into blandness. The setting deserves better.

It’d be great if the Vinoly towers didn’t get dumbed down and the factory and park designs were refined, but I don’t hold out much hope. New Yorkers — and most Americans — haven’t chosen a more reliable way to pay for parks and low-income housing, so these high-risk yet compromised Faustian real-estate bargains get made.

[Updated with quotes from Bagli article.]

Judging by the bikes on the balconies, 400 Bedford Avenue, the new building going up right next to the Williamsburg Bridge is now open for business. Pretty impressive, considering they started construction less than 18 months (a year ago the steel was just starting to go up).

A week after celebrating the ribbon cutting on the its affordable housing – and a year and a half after applications were first accepted for these units – the Edge still has affordable units available. This is actually not news – for a month or two now, the Edge has been calling affordable housing advocates looking for more applicants.

You’re probably wondering how it is possible that thousands of applicants were unable to fill less than 350 units of affordable housing in a neighborhood desperate for affordable housing. The answer is lies in that murky intersection of AMI and income bands (and the probably set asides too). In this case, the project has two-bedroom units that it can’t fill because it can’t find families that earn between $50,278 and $61,450 (the mandated income band for a family of four). That income band is based on the AMI (area median income) for a family of four. And it’s a pretty narrow range – if you earn more, you aren’t eligible (that’s pretty obvious). But if you earn less, you also aren’t eligible – essentially, you are too poor for affordable housing. And in a neighborhood where the actual median income is about $35,000 for a family of four (less half the AMI, which is calculated for the metropolitan area), a lot of affordable housing is suddenly out of reach.

One answer is to set a wider range of income levels, both above and below the 80% AMI standard (a family of four earning $86,000 (about 120% of AMI) probably needs help affording an apartment in this neighborhood too). This is what New Domino is proposing – AMI set asides there would run from 30% to 130%. But even that will probably miss a lot of people in the community who really need affordable housing – in part because of the narrow income bands, in part because only half the housing will be set aside for residents throughout CB1, and in part because the median income in our community is so low (85% of the affordable units at Domino are targeted at families earning well above the $35,000 median income in the community).

This isn’t to say that Domino is wrong in targeting lower AMIs – we certainly need housing that is affordable at range of income levels. But as the experience at the Edge shows, it’s becoming increasingly clear that we can’t build our way out of an affordable housing crisis by adding more and more (and more) market-rate housing.

This sign went up on 351 Kent Avenue (aka Rock Star Bar, née Pies ‘n’ Thighs, Rocky’s, Ship’s Mast, Local, Mermaid Bar and Bubbles) a few weeks back. The site is 3,000 sf (but may include the lot to the east on South 5th Street). That makes for a pretty small development site, particularly when you consider that there is a 335′-tall bridge to the south and a 35-story condo the west that will (someday) block any hope of a view from this site.

Above is a section of the MTA’s new-and-improved subway map, due to be released into the wild next month. Of particular note to residents of North Brooklyn is the orange line that now runs alongside the familiar brown of the J/M/Z line. That’s for the newly revamped M train, which is now part of the 6th Avenue IND system – running from Bushwick and points east through the Lower East Side, and then directly north to the 6th Avenue line and on into Queens. That turn to the north that the M train now makes just west of Essex Street station is known as the Christie Cut – it has been unused since the late 1960s, but has been put back into service to give Williamsburg and Bushwick a direct connection to Midtown Manhattan.

Levine Developers and the City held a ribbon cutting for the affordable housing component at the Edge – the new waterfront condo development on Kent Avenue between North 5th and North 7th Streets. The Edge is the largest inclusionary housing development constructed to date in the City, and it represents a significant step forward on some of the City’s promises from the 2005 zoning.

Amanda Burden, the Chair of the City Planning Commission, had this to say about the project:

This important development epitomizes many of the goals of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning plan: a significant number of badly needed permanently affordable housing units, magnificent new public waterfront access and outstanding architecture.

I don’t know if the public waterfront access is actually open yet, but assuming it is, Burden is right on two out of three. But unless you really (really) like blue-glass balconies and a never-ending materials palette (seriously, did they reject any material sample?), “outstanding architecture” is a serious stretch. I’m sticking with my earlier assessment that the Edge is Goofus to Northside Piers’ Gallant.

The Daily News reports that Luis Zaruma of Williamsburg fell to his death at a Clinton Hill construction site. The accident happened yesterday afternoon at a construction site “on Bedford Avenue in Clinton Hill” (I’m pretty sure the site is 892 Bedford Avenue, just south of Myrtle). According to a DOB spokesman quoted in the News article, Zaruma was not wearing a safety harness at the time of the accident.

According to this report in the Times, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is now the nation’s largest:

If the team’s estimates are accurate, this spill would be far bigger than the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 and the worst in United States history.

But as we all know, the Exxon Valdez pales in comparison to Greenpoint’s own stealth oil spill – the one that the state and the oil companies have taken decades to acknowledge, let alone clean up.

Brooklyn may yet retain its title. The estimates for the Greenpoint oil spill are 17 to 30 million barrel; the latest estimates for Deepwater Horizon (after 35 days) are 17.6 to 28 million.

There was a scaffold collapse at a construction site on Meserole & Manhattan in Greenpoint yesterday. Sadly, one of the workers who fell in the collapse died. I have not been able to find any further information, save for this rather gruesome bit on New York Shitty.

The Real Deal has an interesting article out today on the state of the Williamsburg condo market. Some prime takeaways:

[Michael Brooks of the Developers Group] said deals are being made at $650 per square foot, which [Christine] Blackburn [of PDE] agreed seems to be Williamsburg buyers’ sweetspot [sic] for non-waterfront apartments.

OK, so that’s the market upland – what are condos on the waterfront selling for in this down market? A lot more:

Northside Piers’ average listing price jumped from $785 to $875 per square foot, now that nearly all of its discounted apartments have been snapped up, versus the Edge’s $926 per square foot.

These numbers are averages for the complexes. Truly prime units are asking over $1,110 a square foot. All in all, these numbers are pretty strong, and the brokers the Real Deal spoke to are saying that sales are on the upswing.

Something to keep in mind when folks tell you certain numbers are out of date.