For those of you that forgot to mark you calendars, tomorrow is Rezoning Day. That’s right, it is five years since the City Council approved the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Rezoning. On May 11, 2005, the City Council and the Mayor’s office finalized a package of promises that paved the way for the enactment of the rezoning. Since it’s […]

Photo: animalvegetable on flickr May 11 marks the fourth anniversary of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Rezoning. A lot has happened in four years. Economies have crumbled. Regimes have fallen. The American automobile is more endangered than the American eagle. Here in North Brooklyn, the last four years have brought construction – a hell of a lot […]

As we predicted, Quadriad is back. Henry Wollman of Quadriad made a brief informational presentation to Community Board 1 tonight. Mr. Wollman professed his fondness for the board, and stated that the as-of-right project is being permitted now and will start construction “next week”. That is the five-story project that requires no rezoning and no […]

Its also not clear how the developer proposes to identify the subdistricts – such as the the ten-block area identified in the Northside – that specifically qualify for the “AF” zoning bonus.2 Such areas would be “selected by City Planning” the developer says, but there is no criteria provided for such selection.3 So in a project that provides a huge (and unknowable) economic bonus to developers, and would be available in large, but largely undefined, swaths of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Brooklyn and New York City, CB1 is on the verge of giving an untested developer carte blanche…. But but as many as 40 units would be set aside for families earning $84,000 and more, well above the City’s AMI and three times or more the median income for Williamsburg.↩ 2.For that matter, the developer refuses to say why there are districts and subdistricts – why not just provide a straightforward definition of what sites qualify, and leave it at that?↩ 3.