The Daily News thinks that Marty Markowitz should approve the Domino rezoning. In an error-filled and poorly-reasoned editorial that sounds like it came straight out of the developer’s press release, they pretty much say that it is the City’s responsibility to ensure the developer’s profit:
The project would resurrect the 11-acre tract occupied by the shuttered Domino sugar factory. It would incorporate the plant’s landmark sign and 1880s architecture while providing a 4-acre waterfront park and an unusually high proportion of affordable units.
All true. The project would also reduce the available open space per capita for Williamsburg and CB1, and it would incorporate an unusually high number of market-rate units, which would stress our already over-stressed infrastructure. Which is why a lot of progressives in the neighborhood think the plan needs a lot of work.
All the criteria for creating an important asset for the city are in place. But anti-development forces backed by local Councilman Stephen Levin and his mentor, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, have risen in opposition…
40-story towers, 1,800 new housing units and 30% affordable housing is hardly “anti-development”. That is what the community voted for, and it is a much better plan than what Domino proposes.
The would-be developer, the Community Preservation Corp., is a nonprofit that has built 136,000 units of affordable housing, including 21,000 in Brooklyn – 1,600 in Williamsburg alone.
Wrong. The would-be developer is a for-profit partnership between Isaac Katan and Community Preservation Corporation Resources (CPCR). CPCR is the for-profit development arm of the not-for-profit mortgage lender Community Preservation Corporation (CPC). Over the past 36 years, CPC has financed 136,000 units of affordable housing, and over the past 18 years, CPCR has built a fraction of that number of housing units. The Domino project would be CPCR’s largest new development project by an order of magnitude.
CPC [sic] spent $60 million to buy a tract that is walled off, blocking public riverfront access.
That was a bargain in 2004, when CPCR bought the property, and it is still a bargain in today’s market.
At the direction of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, CPC [sic] will maintain the famed Domino sign, as well as the main building’s distinctive facade – adding $50 million to construction costs…
CPCR has been complaining about the cost of preservation (and wharf construction, open space, affordable housing and just about everything else) for years. And local residents and the community board have been asking for financial details for years so that they can judge the value of the trade offs for themselves. But CPCR has been unwilling to share (if the Daily News has seen the financials, maybe they would like to share).
And judging by this picture, CPCR is doing a pretty lousy job of maintaining the famed Domino sign.
Where a developer typically agrees to charge affordable rents for 20% of a project’s units, CPC [sic] has pegged the proportion at 30%. The group also is proposing to set rents well below typical standards for affordable housing.
Good deeds here are in danger of being severely punished. Lopez and the local community board say that at 2,200 units, the development would be too dense.
CPCR’s own Environmental Impact Statement also says that it is too dense. The affordable housing is great, but without sound, sustainable planning, affordable housing just ends up being a rather thin silver lining for bad development.
They foresee subway crowding as construction progresses over five years or so. Give us a break! By that argument, nothing should ever get built.
Actually, it is 10 years or so. But give us a break – why should the city (which is broke), the MTA (which is even more broke) and the community (which is already suffering from overcrowded public transit, lack of open space and an overburdened infrastructure) be forced to pay the true cost of a private developer’s boondoggle? If CPCR wants to build 2,200 residential units – 25% more than other developers were allowed to build in similar waterfront projects – why doesn’t CPCR pay for the upgrades to our transit system? Why doesn’t CPCR pay to make the open space impact neutral, or – God forbid – increase the per capita open space for a neighborhood that ranks 39th out of 51 in the city? Instead, they just throw their hands up and tell the city “It’s your problem, you fix it.”
The fate of the Domino project will speak volumes about the future of the city. Right now, it is headed toward a replay of the disaster in the Bronx, where Borough President Ruben Diaz stopped development of the Kingsbridge Armory – along with 2,200 permanent jobs.
Unlike Kingsbridge, the community is not asking that this project be killed. The modifications requested ask that it be scaled back to the level of development approved everywhere else on the waterfront. That is still a huge project.
Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who can make up for her role in killing Kingsbridge, must get foursquare behind Domino. If they can find a way to scale the project back a bit while maintaining financial viability – and affordable housing – great.
Otherwise, they need to stand fast.
So Williamsburg should pay the price to make up for a bad decision in the Bronx? That makes no sense whatsoever. If the council and the mayor’s office can’t find a way to scale the project back “a bit” (and the community has given them a pretty good roadmap for what “a bit” is), they should send the developer back to the drawing board.
CPCR is the developer here, they are the ones who should be taking on the risk. That’s what developers do. That’s not what the city does.
Bloomberg has a special duty because his landmarks commission boosted CPC’s [sic] costs by $50 million, forcing up the size of the development.
Um, no. Trying to lay this all at the feet of landmarking (or politics) is a desperation move by CPCR. The “bonus” they are seeking is worth far more that the $50 million they claim historic preservation is costing them.
If CPCR thinks landmarking is truly such a burden, they can apply for special permits through LPC or file for hardship relief. Those processes are there to provide relief for owners of landmark buildings. But the city is under no obligation to “make it up to them”, and under even less of an obligation to take the developer’s word on the costs and the hardships.
The city has a choice: The Domino sign can be a beacon of the future or a sad epitaph.
Yes, an epitaph for irresponsible, unsustainable development would be sad.
Via Brooklyn Public’s Brooklynology blog, the story of Grandma Logan, who moved to Greenpoint in 1859 at age 21. She died in Greenpoint in 1936, 100 years old, and in all her time in the neighborhood, she left the Garden Spot only three times.
In 1927, she recollected:
We had to go to India St. for a pail of water…there was a beautiful orchard between Norman and Nassau Sts. on Newell St., and many beautiful gardens.
Waiting for Godot at Greenpoint Hospital. It’s been three years since the RFP was issued, and – good news! – HPD is “still on pace to choose a developer for the site in the near future”. That’s reassuring.
Seventeen paragraphs into a story on why consumers might not buy the iPad, we learn this:
It may be too early to gauge consumer interest in the iPad. Developers have not yet had time to prepare a variety of applications for the device, and Apple has not yet done much of what it perhaps does best: advertise.
Yes, that and the fact that there is no consumer on the face of the planet who has touched an iPad.
Stunningly stupid reportage.
351 South 1st Street in its gas station days
Photo: PropertyShark (via RealDeal)
Brownstoner reported earlier this week on the potential development of the former Shell station on the four-sided triangle at Grand, Keap, South 1st and Borinquen. The developers of the property are saying that they will build a two-story “retail strip center” in phase one and an “apartment tower” in a future phase.
In the old days, a two-story retail strip center would be called a taxpayer – those one- and two-story retail buildings that you see throughout the city, particularly from the 1930s through 1950s. They are a way for developers to put a property to some use and at least cover the costs of carrying a property until better times come along (and from the neighborhood’s point of view, that is a big improvement over a vacant lot or an abandoned gas station).
At this point, though, DOB permits have been pulled for demolishing the former gas station on the site. There are no applications listed on BIS for building anything – retail strip or apartment building. And according to the comment thread on this Real Deal posting, the developers are strapped for cash and don’t even own the property (they have a net lease).
So the near-term potential sure looks good for this turning from an abandoned gas station to a vacant lot.
Earlier this week, OSA Presents announced its second benefit concert for the summer season – Nas and Damian Marley on July 31st. Tickets are $40 (with proceeds benefitting the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn). There was an internet “presale” yesterday, and tickets go on sale to the general public at noon today (click on title link, above, to go to Ticketmaster site).
In a prophylactic move, Zip112, the “legal” hostel at 112 North 6th Street has decided to close its doors before the city DOB inspectors return and potentially close it down for good.
Zip112 was spared from closure during the city’s initial inspection when the owner was able to convince a city inspector that a ladder hung off the 5th floor wooden deck constituted a second means of egress. Think about that – a fifth-floor walk-up apartment with no CO for residential use was deemed legal because there was a ladder – not a fire escape, a ladder – leading from a wooden (i.e., combustible) deck. That was their second means of egress?
Maybe someone should speak to that inspector?
The Observer’s Eliot Brown has an article out today about the warring factions on either side of the Rose Plaza rezoning. The basic thesis of the article is that the objections to the rezoning are all about politics and nothing about land use – that developer Isack Rosenberg just wants “to do the same to his waterfront land” as other developers have done elsewhere.
If Brown had done his homework, he’d know that the community has a pretty strong record of not supporting developers who want do the same as everyone else.
Rose Plaza proposes 801 units of housing, 160 (20%) of which would be affordable. Brown cites four projects in his opening paragraph that are relevant precedents. Two of these – Schaefer Landing and Domino – have (or propose) much higher levels of affordable housing (40% and 30%, respectively). The community supported Schaefer and supported the level of affordability at Domino (the objections to Domino were on other fronts). The two other projects cited by Brown – the Edge and Northside Piers – are more comparable to Rose Plaza, in that they only have 20% affordable housing. But the community voted against that rezoning, in large part because 20% was seen as too low.
Brown also cites “concerns about overwhelming the neighborhood” as another reason for opposition, but that was not a basis for the community board’s opposition to Rose Plaza. In fact, it was the board’s position that the base zoning (801 units) was acceptable, but that additional affordable housing was warranted because the developer was looking for a raft of special permits on top of the zoning change.
The community has been pretty consistent on this – give us smart, sustainable and manageable growth and sufficient affordable housing. Yes, there is political intrigue within the Hasidic community, but there is also hell of a lot of support for good growth.
Aerial view of St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
The Sunday School is the to the left in the photo and the rectory to the right
Photo: Brooklyn Public Library
Last week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held one of its designation hearing days. The day included public hearings for two Coney Island landmarks, the Shore Theatre and Childs Restaurant. The Commission calendared St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church for a future public hearing, the first step in the designation process*.
LPC also took the final step and designated four new landmarks last week [pdf], including the former Germania Fire Insurance Company on the Bowery. The Lower East Side and East Village was once home to Kleindeutschland, the largest largest German immigrant neighborhood in greater New York City. The second-largest German immigrant neighborhood was, of course, Williamsburg and Bushwick.
*Disclosure: I did the initial research on the history of the church and worked with the congregation to get funding for a condition survey and restoration work.
In the Brooklyn Paper, Aaron Short has this quote from one of the few legal tenants in the building:
“It’s horrible!” said Ralph De La Rosa of Go Yoga, which occupies a first-floor business space. “The city should be doing something else instead of vacating them in this way.”
Let’s review, shall we. This is a six-story building with 12 “apartments”. There are no sprinklers (as is required for hotels and other transient uses), there are no secondary means of egress (as is required for hotels and other transient uses). Most of the four-story addition is constructed of combustible wood framing. All of the DOB permits for this building describe a three-story commercial building, so the top three stories seem to be some form of immaculate construction (DOB issued a violation for the construction of the third story in 2002, but somehow missed the fourth, fifth and sixth). There is no certificate of occupancy (so technically, even Go Yoga is in there illegally).
What else, exactly, would you have the city do? Other than the fact that a lot of people are out of their (very expensive) home, what is horrible about this whole episode is the fact that the city didn’t do something about it eight years ago.
