The open meeting law does apply to community boards. Public participation is not guaranteed, but open meetings should be. That said, there were other reporters in attendance, so was the meeting actually closed to the public?
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I Just Expected Something More Original
Dunkin’ Donuts is setting up shop in the old Northside Pharmacy space. Halina Jankowski, owner of Northside Pharmacy (which is now on Driggs) sums it all up pretty well: “I just expected something a little more fancy or original or hip.”
And this after years of living in fear of Starbucks.
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Quadriad Townhouses
The row houses at the former Quadriad site – the longest running development saga in neighborhood history – are finally, finally finished and ready to go market. If you count the time spent trying to turn this project into a 23-story building, these row houses have been at least seven years in the making.
The row houses themselves – designed by RKT&B and Stan Allen – are very nice, particularly the way they are set back from the street to create a sort of public/private area of front yards. But $2.4 million a pop, for a house that is less than 15′ wide?
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McCarren Park Pool outscores Barclays Center
Seriously?
The area around McCarren was developed into condoland years ago (a lot of projects predate the 2005 zoning). I’d bet that the prior redevelopment, not to mention the massive rezoning of the area in 2005, had a lot more to do with the price of development sites in the area than a few million gallons of water in a pool do (as fantastic as that pool might be).
I can’t see the actual report from Eastern Consolidated, but the total volume comparison is BS. Look at $/sf (mentioned in the Crain’s report), and the areas are a lot closer (though McCarren still “wins” by 20%, not 200%).
And then decide which is the apple and which is the orange.
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Post-Sandy Rezoning at CB1
The agenda for Community Board 1’s Land Use Committee meeting tonight is a pretty sleepy affair – two BSA applications, both of which are retreads that the Board has heard in years past. However, there is one very important agenda item, which is a presentation by City Planning on the City’s proposed Flood Resilience Zoning Text Amendment, which modifies the zoning to allow new development to meet the new flood zone requirements.
I saw the presentation last week at CB2, and what the city is proposing is to modify the zoning to allow flood-resilient design with no (or minimal) impact on development rights. For those of you hoping that Sandy and the new FEMA flood zones will make development in Zone A impossible, this makes development possible. Actually, post-Sandy regulations don’t make development in Zone A impossible in the first place, in simple terms, they only restrict development and use at the base of buildings. These changes to the zoning will, in some case, permit taller development to compensate for the fact that ground floors now need to be flood-proofed in some manner and will no longer be usable floor area. Other modifications include not counting construction below the flood level as floor area and allowing greater amounts of rooftop mechanical area.
When: Tonight (June 25), 6:30 pm
Where: CB1 offices, 435 Graham Avenue -
G Train Weekend Outages
It could have been worse, but if you plan your weekends around the G train being in operation, make new plans:
The [MTA…] considered closing the Greenpoint tube on the G train all summer for repair work. Instead, the tunnel will be closed for 12 weekends this year. Service will be replaced with a shuttle bus between Brooklyn and Queens. The Greenpoint tube will likely be closed during the summer of 2014 for additional repairs, the official said.
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Three Brooklyn Buildings Calendared for LPC Designation
Three Brooklyn buildings
are to bewere calendared for Landmark designation atnextTuesday’s LPC hearing. They include the Huberty mansion on Bushwick Avenue and the former Long Island Business College on South 8th Street, as well as an 1850s frame building in Wallabout. All great buildings. -
East Williamsburg, Queens
PS 71, East Williamsburg, L. I.
Photo: via ebay
MapI’m sure Kalmon Dolgin was just fluffing their listing, as Gothamist said, but, there is a bit of historical accuracy to the moniker. Historically, there was a village just over the Queens border that was called East Williamsburg (Long Island!), as the above postcard will attest. This was completely distinct from the enlarged area of the town (and later city) of Williamsburg east of Union Avenue, which was annexed to the original town of Williamsburg (west of Union) in 1835.
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Ugliest, Scariest, Most Horrible
The last thing Greenpoint ever wanted was a wall of buildings. This is the ugliest, scariest, most horrible plan.
It would have been great if all these people cared back in 2004 or so when all of this was getting approved. Olechowski is right – there was a lot of activism within the community to get a better plan out of the rezoning (going back to the mid 1990s), but what was approved is what was approved.
And except for the height of 77 Commercial, just about everything here is what was approved in 2005. And the height of 77 Commercial has an actual community benefit attached to it – a new park next door at 65 Commercial. Whether that is a trade-off worth making is another question.
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South Williamsburg Creeps North
An investment group led by Waterbridge Capital’s Joel Schreiber has closed on the purchase of nearly an entire South Williamsburg block, with plans for high-end retail development, the Wall Street Journal reported… Waterbridge is looking to bring “high-end retail,” tenants to the block, a source familiar with the transaction told the Journal. Doing so would continue the transformation of South Williamsburg into a trendy retail destination, with stores such as Whole Foods making their way to the neighborhood.
$30 million for a South Williamsburg block?!? And a Whole Foods?!!?
Oh, by “South Williamsburg” they really mean “Bedford and Driggs avenues and North Third and North Fourth streets”. (And Waterbridge already acquired half this block last year – remember J. Crew?