Last night, Brooklyn’s Community Board #1 voted to table the proposed resolution in support of the Quadriad project. The motion to table came after it became clear that many Board members did not understand the full scope and impact of the Quadriad plan. Based on the close vote at the Land Use committee last week, it is clear that there is no consensus on the project.

The Quadriad motion will go back to the Land Use committee for further discussion and dissection. The committee could take up the issue as early as the next meeting, which is on 26 June.

This latest turn of events is a good development, in that it will give Board members time to ask questions and (hopefully) get some answers from the developer on what approval of the Quadriad project would really mean for the whole community.

If you thought that the City gave away too much in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Last night, CB1’s land use committee – in a very contentious vote – chose to endorse Quadriad’s proposal for a new affordable housing zoning overlay. If the resolution is adopted by the full board, CB1 will have literally given away the store, and in the process will have thrown out all of the good of the upland rezoning for Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

What is Quadriad?

In a nutshell, Quadriad is a development project proposed for the vacant lot on the north side of North 3rd, between Bedford and Berry. The proposal being put forward for this site is to generate 1/3 “affordable”1 housing by allowing a doubling of the allowable market rate development. In other words, instead of the 82 new market-rate units allowed under the rezoning, the developer would be allowed to build 241 units of housing, 85 of which (roughly 1/3) would be set aside as “affordable” housing.

The reason why the developer needs such a huge subsidy to make this cross-subsidization plan work is that they are operating from the premise that public money (tax abatements, et al) is bad, and the market is good. But this ignores the whole point of tax abatements and other public subsidies, which is to spread the burden of affordable housing (and other social needs) among the largest possible population. By eschewing public money, the developer is taking a rightist philosophical stance that is essentially asking the Northside to shoulder all the burden of subsidizing the affordable housing. And that burden is very real – on this one project alone, 241 units of housing would be created. At a conservative 2 persons per unit, that’s close to 320 more people than allowed under current zoning. 320 more people using the subway every morning, etc., etc.

In order to make this happen, the contextual zoning for the lot must be discarded in favor of a new “AF” zoning category. The 5-story height limit is waived for a sky-exposure plane building that in this case would rise to 24 stories (for comparison sake, our infamous Finger Building is right now less than half that height; the Northside Piers development under construction on the waterfront is only 5 stories taller). The R6B zoning – the lowest density permitted under the rezoning – is almost tripled, with the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) going from 2.0 to 5.5. In layman’s terms, the density of the development is almost exactly tripled, from 82 units to 241 units.

The real kicker is this – Quadriad is not just a proposal for one site on the Northside. It is in fact a proposal to create a city-wide zoning text change to allow this type of development on development sites of 40,000 square feet or more citywide. The developer has identified most of north Brooklyn as eligible for this new zoning overlay, and has defined a subdistrict of 10 blocks on the Northside that would be specifically targeted. Those 10 blocks contains as many as 7 additional sites that would qualify for “AF” zoning. Stay tuned to see what that means.

Is it Worth It?

Who the hell knows? The developer has presented a plan that is long on rhetoric and short on details. The developer refuses to provide explicit details on what a 2.75-times density bonus means in terms of economic return, so there is no way to quantitatively determine if this density bonus is appropriate or if creates an unreasonable windfall. One would have to assume that it creates a windfall over and above the economic return provided by an as-of-right project (which seem to be quite windfally enough right now, thank you), otherwise why would a developer go to the time, expense and risk of dealing with the additional regulations and oversight of the affordable housing component. But what that windfall is, and whether it a reasonable trade-off for the amount of affordable housing and the increased burdens on the neighborhood infrastructure is anyone’s guess.

The developer also refused a number of requests to clearly define what sites are eligible for this new “AF” zoning overlay. Its clear that it applies only to sites over 40,000 square feet. The developer’s briefing book says that it applies to areas currently zoned R4 to R8, but the developer told the Community Board that it also applied to areas currently zoned for manufacturing uses. 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.

What Quadriad Really Means

What Quadriad won’t say is what the impact of this new “AF” zoning would be on a larger scale. In effect, they want to have it both ways. They want to say that Quadriad is a one-off experiment at this one site. At the same time, they don’t want to be accused of spot zoning, so they present an ambiguous proposal for a citywide zoning text change. And then, they say that if the citywide text change is not approved, they would still go forward with their application for this one site. Runs rings around you logically, eh?

But we can guess at what Quadriad means. Even within the limited “subdistrict” of the Northside they define, there are known knowns. For instance, there are seven development sites within that 10 block area that meet the minimum 40,000 square foot requirement (including Quadriad and the other site on its block). Five of those seven sites are zoned R6A, so they have a higher base density than the Quadriad block (which is zoned R6B). So those five sites would generate a maximum bonus FAR of 7.25 (which, by the way, is far higher than the density allowed on the new waterfront tower sites, which max out at 4.7 6.5 FAR). Given this huge density bonus, a single tower would probably be limited in height by the sky exposure plane requirements, so multiple towers on a single site are possible (and those towers could well be taller than the 29-story Northside Piers tower now under construction).

Assuming the distribution of units achieved by Quadriad on their site4, the five R6A sites would generate just short of 1,900 units of housing. The two R6B sites, under the same scenario, would generate another 480 units. So assuming that no other sites in the Northside are eligible for this program (and we think there are at least a dozen that would be, even under the narrowest definition, probably many more), the total number of new units generated by “AF” zoning in a 6-block area would be 2,380 units. The entire Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning is expected to generate 10,000 units or so (not counting an additional 2,200 projected at the Domino site), so this is close to a 25% increase over and above the density that most people in the neighborhood thought was untenable two years ago. And it happens not on the waterfront, but smack dab in the middle of the Northside. At a minimum, this “AF” zoning would bring close to 5,000 more people to the core Northside area. An area that is served by one subway station. An area that has no local fire house. An area that has no local EMT station. And so on, and so on.

But what about the benefits? Well the benefits are low- and middle-income affordable housing. And the numbers are substantial – if the full 2,380 units are built, the number of affordable units would be 833. 215 of those would be truly affordable, at 30% of AMI. But there is no way, based on the evidence presented to date, to know if these numbers are worth it. Too many questions remain unanswered:

Are these numbers worth the substantial increase in the number of market-rate units (and thus population increase)?

Could the number of market rate units be reduced by using public subsidies in conjunction with internal cross subsidies?

What does the developer get in return for providing this level of “affordable” housing? Is that reasonable?

Why does a market-only scenario require twice the density bonus to generate the same per centage of affordable housing as the waterfront sites are now generating? Is that reasonable?

Does anyone think that this is actually good urban planning?

UPDATE: Corrected the allowable FAR for waterfront sites. 4.7 is the as-of-right density, assuming no affordable housing. 6.5 is the FAR with the inclusionary housing. (Which works out to a bonus of about 39%, far less than the 100% Quadriad is asking for.)

1.Warning: this note may cause your head to spin. By neighborhood standards, most of the housing is not truly affordable. Affordable housing is defined as a percentage of area median income (AMI). In NYC, the AMI for a family of four is roughly $70,000. But in CB1, AMI for a family of four is less than half that. In the Quadriad proposal, 22 units would be set aside for families earning $30,000, or more or less the neighborhood AMI. 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. For example, the Quadriad subdistrict runs from Bedford Avenue to Kent Avenue, North 3rd to North 6th Street, for a total of 10 blocks. That 10 block area includes two blocks of small-scale residential buildings, with few lots over 2,500 square feet, let alone approaching 40,000 square feet (the block of Bedford to Berry, North 4th to North 6th). But the subarea excludes the block of Bedford to Driggs, North 3rd to North 4th, which contains a 53,000 square foot site (the Bagel Store building). This reverse gerrymandering is convenient for the inclusion of the low-scale Quadriad site (the rest of the subarea blocks west of Berry have a higher density zoning), but is otherwise illogical.↩

4. Quadriad generates one market rate unit for every 1,050 square feet of buildable area under their as-of-right scenario. Under the “AF” program, they generate one unit for every 981 square feet of buildable area. But all is not equal in Quadriad’s world. Under the “AF” proposal, the market-rate development would still generate one unit for every 1,051 square feet of buildable area, even though almost half the market-rate units are studios. The ownership component of the affordable housing development would only generate one unit for every 717 square feet of buildable area; the affordable rental component would fare a bit better, generating one unit for every 860 square feet. Whatever the opposite of “separate but equal” is, this is it.↩

Though it starts out well, this story has a bad ending.

In the sea of banality that is new construction in North Brooklyn, there are actually a few buildings that stand out (for the better, that is). These buildings, which are contextual but in a completely modern skin, are an excellent rebuttal to those who think that context means masonry buildings with carelessly applied ornament and a crown molding cornice. There is just such a building going up on South 1st Street for some time now.

The project is located at 207 – 211 South 1st Street, and is actually three buildings (though they look like two). The larger “building”1 in the complex is a 65′-long four-story building with large windows surrounded by a strong stucco enframement and trimmed in wood slats. The smaller building (#211) is also four stories, but only 25′ wide, and has narrow slit windows behind an almost all wood facade. This facade appears to be a frontispiece for a rather large building filling the irregularly-shaped lot behind lot behind. The buildings are on the one hand clearly related to one another, yet on the other hand, each reads as its its own structure and each reflects its own program. The project was designed by Robert Scarano Architects, and are typical of his shop in their aggressive modernity. This is a modernity that, when it works, is highly successful, and such is the case here.

Although they are located in an R6 unlimited-height zone, the shallow lots limit the overall height, yielding a very contextual 4 stories. With mezzanines,2 the buildings rise to 55′ – almost spot on the height of the neighboring early 20th-century tenements (but not slavishly mimicking the height of the adjacent building). Unlike many Scarano projects, these buildings do not celebrate the mezzanine with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. The wood slats that cover every other window horizontally also serve to break up the large areas of glass and afford some built-in privacy to the units. A good thing too, since most people don’t know how to live in buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Aside from their height, there is little that is immediately “contextual” about these buildings. The materials are stucco and wood, arranged into large post-post-Modern framing elements. One building appears at first glance to have no windows whatsoever; the other building has long expanses of tall windows anathema to the traditional punched openings of a masonry building. But the facades of both are given a texture and personality by the judicious use of wood, as both a decorative and shading element. The real success, though, is in the simple massing of both buildings. Unlike other projects by the same firm, these buildings have no out-of-context massing to sully the streetscape. In their own way, these buildings are almost throwbacks to the simplicity of the international style, not the busy, overwrought form-shifting practiced by Scarano and others.3

We need only turn our heads next door to 205 South 1st Street to understand the difference that good design makes in a streetscape. There, a brick facade, ill-considered classical ornament and sympathetic building height4 clearly do not make a contextual (or for that matter, good) design. 205 South 1st is a Bricolage special (the firm with no website), completed in 2003, and has absolutely nothing to recommend it. The bright and modern Scarano buildings, which positively celebrate design, are hands down the good neighbors on the block. Contextualism is a very subjective term, but to too many, it simply means matching materials and cornice heights, tossing in a few keystones, and calling it a day. If that is the standard, then Bricolage’s 205 South 1st is, we suppose, contextual (though obviously the developer was too cheap to even spring for the keystones). It is also banal and ugly as sin, and the future of north Brooklyn. Scarano’s 207 – 211 South 1st, on the other hand, uses modern materials and composition to create a pair of buildings that is far more interesting to look at.

The Scarano buildings do a number of other things right. Although the buildings are all constructed by the same developer, they are functionally independent. This independence is muddled somewhat by the placing of two buildings behind one facade, but the different treatment of the facades on the street avoids creating a midblock monolith. Despite their differentiation, the two pieces are clearly the work of a single designer, and they come together visually – a fine thing for a humble street on the Southside. Compare this ensemble to Bayard Street (aka Karl Fischer Row), where Mr. Fischer is designing a row of highrises facing onto McCarren Park, each of which has nothing to do with its neighbor. Scarano took the opportunity of an extended site to create a complete composition (granted for the same developer), whereas Fisher, on a vastly more prominent site, appears to have not been aware that he was his own next-door neighbor. In essence, Scarano has redefined (for the good) the context of this block of South 1st, whereas Fisher, presented with opportunity to define the context of a major public space, has completely dropped the ball.

There are many small details that also make Scarano’s buildings fit in with the block. Like many of his firm’s projects, these buildings do a good job of concealing all the mechanical detritus that usually accumulates on top of today’s “luxury” condos – cooling towers, bulkheads, etc. Another feature that I particularly like in these buildings is the balconies – or rather, the almost complete lack thereof. The only balconies on the project are at 211 South 1st (the easternmost building), and there they face the party wall to the east rather than the street. By facing the balconies in this direction, these glorified bike racks do not detract from the design of the buildings themselves, nor do they clutter up the street for the rest of us.

Among all the hits, there are some misses here. The first floor of the buildings feels too short. This is another common element of Scarano’s buildings, one in which he turns on its head the traditional building facade hierarchy. The result is a feeling that the building above is crushing the first floor beneath its considerable weight. The first-floor apartments also have way too much glass for the average apartment dweller – unless the right kind of exhibitionist moves in, they will be covered by permanent (or worse still, ersatz) shades in no time. And it remains to be seen how the wood panel system will hold up over time. In fact, the same could be said for the whole material palette – these buildings are so sleek and ultra modern that a patina of age may not become them.

So what is the bad ending? Well, it turns out that all three of these buildings have another thing in common with many of Scarano’s projects – they have all been shut down by Stop Work Orders. At 80% complete (according to DOB), and no doubt in further fallout from Scarano’s mezzanine issues, DOB put the projects into audit in October, 2006. Since then, no work has been done. The 207-209 pair of buildings even appear to have taken on new architects.

So, there they sit – two (or three) of the better designed new buildings on the Southside, shut down for over six months now. I don’t know if the problem here is mezzanines – and thus too much floor area – but if so, how ironic that these buildings, which fit so well into the neighborhood (and make a tremendous aesthetic contribution to the block) are in fact non-contextual from a zoning standpoint.

✧ ✧ ✧

1. “Building” in quotation marks because it is actually two separate apartment buildings behind one unified facade. The site is actually three separate buildings on relatively shallow (75′ deep) lots. 207 – 209 contain two buildings behind their wide unified facade. 207 is 25′ wide and contains 5 units on 4 floor (6,900 gsf); 209 is 40′ wide and contains 8 units on 4 floors (10,700 gsf); 211 is an irregular lot with 60′ of street frontage, with 8 units on 4 floors (10,900 gsf).↩

1. The applications have since been amended to withdraw the mezzanines and substitute attics. Either way, mezzanines, attics and even basements are all ways of creating square footage from thin air – in other words, creating square footage without creating floor area that counts against the allowable FAR. The difference appears to be that attics and basements are legal, while mezzanines may or may not be.↩

3. Aside from opening yourself up to lawsuits, isn’t it beyond lame to steal someone else’s made up brand name for your luxury condo development. I know some developers are too cheap to hire namers, but The Lucent has to be lamest condo name of 2007.↩

4. Clearly derived from zoning, not some sense of civic on architect’s (or developer’s) part.↩

176 South 4th Street
Architect: Bricolage (2002 – 2005)
Photo: Gregg Snodgrass for Property Shark

Recognizing that there is an important place for the background building in our street scape – or put another way, that not every building can (or should) be “high” architecture – I will say that this building is not bad for what it is. Sure, its banal, but it is inoffensive (high praise indeed for a Bricolage design). Mr. Radusky has suppressed (if not entirely eliminated) his fetish for the keystone as a contextual element, and the building only has one (randomly placed) string course. The recess at the center of the second and third story has me scratching my head, and the floating lintel there proves once again that it is a fine line indeed between mannerism and ham fistedness.

If the building itself is a good neighbor, the first story is nothing of the sort. I understand the need for garage entries (assuming you have to have a garage, which is certainly debatable from a public policy point of view), but the whole recessed first floor here is a blight. This isn’t Florida – we do not need carports. And we definitely don’t need more dark recesses that make pedestrians want to cross the street.

But back to that whole background building concept. Is it me, or does this building fall a rung or three below the apartment building to the left? Both are essentially the same architectural stylings, about 85 years apart – take a brick facade, apply some ready-made, inexpensive ornament, and call it a day. The difference is that the architect of the tenement probably knew something about the Classical orders (and used a better quality brick). The apartment building next door (180 South 4th) is also a condo, by the way. It has 11 units plus stores and offices on the ground floor, vs. 9 units in 176 South 4th. If you’re keeping score at home, that works out to about 1,500 sf per unit (gross) in the older building and 1,700 sf per unit (gross) in the newer building – we’re still packing them in 85 years later.

Finally, a fun fact about 176 South 4th Street. The property was acquired from the city by Joshua Guttman in 1984, who then sold it to the current developer(Williamsburg Bridge Towers LLC).

Update: A better image of 180 South 4th Street after the jump.

Thanks to Brownstoner for pointing this one out.

Continue…