Greenpoint is Over

“MarieBelle’s flagship store [is] in New York’s famous Soho District […and it] has a rustic-style Cacao Market in trendy Greenpoint, Brooklyn”.

Based on this press release, I think that we can put February 19, 2019 down in the calendar as the date that Greenpoint officially jumped the gentrification shark.

Atlantic’s Credibility Crisis

Wow – Atlantic Cities let someone with no clue about development in Brooklyn write about development in Brooklyn. The basic premise of the article is that zoning (both use and FAR limits) is making housing more expensive by restricting the amount of new housing that can be constructed. In other words, the classic libertarian argument about land-use restrictions.

Let’s review:

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of housing units in the five boroughs inched up an average of 0.5 percent annually between 2000 and 2010. That’s not even enough to keep pace with average U.S. population growth, which is about 1 percent per year.

The 2010 Census is so flawed, particularly with regard to Williamsburg and Greenpoint, that no credible argument can be based on its data. Remember, according to the census, much of North Brooklyn did not see a population increase between 2000 and 2010. Despite the very gentrification that Smith writes about, despite a building boom that has added thousands of new housing units since 2002 and despite a massive rezoning halfway through the decade that allowed for the creation of thousands more new housing units in formerly industrially-zoned areas. In all, something on the order of 4,000 new dwelling units (very conservatively estimated) have been added to the western parts of Greenpoint and Williamsburg since 2005 (the areas within and immediately adjacent to the 2005 rezoning). Hundreds if not thousands more have been added elsewhere in Greenpoint, Bushwick and the Southside.

Functionally, the industrial zoning along the waterfront and throughout Bushwick is hopelessly out of date. Urban manufacturing here is a shell of its former self. Car repair shops, wholesalers, warehouses and storage facilities are now the main tenants of Brooklyn’s “manfacturing core.”

What industrial zoning along the waterfront? 80% of the Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront was rezoned for residential use 7 years ago, and another 10% (Domino) in 2010. Hundreds of new housing units have been created on the Williamsburg waterfront, and hundreds more are coming to Greenpoint. There are three blocks of the Williamsburg waterfront that are still zoned manufacturing (between Grand and North 3rd) one of those blocks contains a power plant), and the other two.

Meanwhile, the remaining industrially-zoned areas of north Brooklyn are creating a lot of jobs. Good jobs, too. Look at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a center of high-tech manufacturing and film production. Look at GMDC, which has a waiting list of small manufacturers. Look at the booming film production industry in Greenpoint. Historically, many people in north Brooklyn worked in north Brooklyn – not in Manhattan.

East Williamsburg actually has an abundance of underused land around Bushwick Creek, but Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz don’t want to allow any residential development in the neighborhood, in order “to preserve the city’s manufacturing base.”

Bushwick Creek is not in East Williamsburg. It is not even a creek anymore. It is an inlet on the East River that divides Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Yes, the city created a small industrial carve out around Bushwick Inlet in 2005, and no, that carve out probably doesn’t make any sense.

…northern Brooklyn is underdeveloped. The hip neighborhoods around the L train, the main vehicle of gentrification in Williamsburg and Bushwick, are less than half as dense as Brooklyn neighborhoods like Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy.

Perhaps true – hard to tell from a jpeg of a map with no data sources listed (perhaps its from the census?). Regardless, much of Williamsburg and Greenpoint is actually under built compared to the allowable zoning. The potential density for north Brooklyn at current FAR limits is well above the actual density (in fact, it is probably comparable to the density shown in the fuzzy jpeg map, which seems to show much of brownstone Brooklyn at higher density than north Brooklyn – though all these areas have roughly the same zoned density).

Aesthetically, the vinyl-covered two- to four-story houses that dominate are some of the ugliest in the city. They lack the ornate cornices of their peers in south Brooklyn, and the brick patterns hidden behind the vinyl and stucco are plain compared to other pre-war styles.

So tear them down and we can build to a higher density. Zoning isn’t stopping that, and in fact that’s what is happening already (and has been happening very actively for a decade now). (And by the way, the brick is plain because a lot of those houses are pre-a-different-war – the Civil War; Williamsburg in particular has some of the oldest housing stock in the city.)

Problem is, from an infrastructure point of view, north Brooklyn is hurting. Unlike other areas of Brooklyn with higher population densities, north Brooklyn is not as richly served by public transit (if you pay attention to the map, the areas of highest density are along the public transit corridors), and it does not have as much park and open space as a lot of other areas. L trains run at capacity (in part because more newer residents are more likely to work in Manhattan, not locally), JMZ trains are rapidly gaining capacity (and neither line can be readily expanded), new bus lines, bike lanes and ferries are being added (but that only helps at the margins), parks and open space are overcrowded and over-utilized, and on and on. Sure, we could double the zoning density of North Brooklyn, but our infrastructure can’t even handle the thousands of people who have been added to the area to date, let alone the thousands more that will be added if currently as of right development continues apace.

More on the Sweater Factory Lofts

I linked briefly to the New York Times article on the ongoing Sweater Factory saga. Herewith, some more thoughts:

“It’s not crime and disinvestment that’s the enemy of the working-class jobs here anymore,” said Leah Archibald, the director of the East Williamsburg Valley Industrial Development Corporation, a nonprofit entity that administers the Industrial Business Zone. “It’s gentrification that’s become the enemy.”

Leah is absolutely right, but what did we expect when the city carved out the Bushwick Inlet industrial zone in 2005? This small enclave of manufacturing is surrounded by new residential zones targeted for luxury housing, so is it really surprising to anyone that manufacturing is not really viable there? Despite calls from many in the community to provide better industrial retention policies, more truly mixed-use zoning and lower densities, this was simply not a priority for City Planning or the loudest voices on the community side. So now this 17-block area now sits isolated and vulnerable amid a sea of new housing. I had a lengthy interview with the Times reporter about the Sweater Factory (alas, no quote!), and made this very point to her. With residential uses unavailable (legally, at least), the highest and best use in this tiny triangle has shifted to bars, bowling alleys and hotels. All as-of-right, but uses that necessarily erode the viability of manufacturing.

When the City set up the Industrial Business Zones in 2005, they made a commitment to slow the flow of variances and rezonings in M zones. That approach has largely worked in East Williamsburg, where there is enough critical mass and enough distance from residential districts (though all bets are off when Bloomberg leaves office). Yes, there are plenty of loft conversions there, but percentage-wise, manufacturing remains the dominant use. Not so in Bushwick Inlet, where the gentrification is not the Sweater Factory lofts but the host of new as-of-right uses that command rents many times higher than manufacturing. About the only bright lining in this area is the rise of tech jobs.

“We take all this stuff very seriously. That’s why we’ve been out there numerous times,” said Ryan FitzGibbon, a department spokeswoman. If the owners of 239 Banker continued to flout the law, she said, it would be possible to take them to court. But with the application pending, she said, “The agency will work with the loft board on this situation to try to legalize the conditions.”

While the DOB tries to defend its embarrassing lack of enforcement, the fact is that they may have been out there numerous times, but they never did much to actually enforce their stop work orders. The DOB has been the prime enabler in this saga, and hiding behind the loft law (which I understand probably doesn’t even apply at this property), is insane.

As Brooklyn Gentrifies, Some Neighborhoods are Left Behind

In its continues discovery of this place called Brooklyn, the Times learns that this is a big, diverse borough that (contra Brian Williams) does not have artisinal cheese on every street.

“Here, everything remains the same,” [said Theresa Scavo, chairwoman of CB15 in southern Brooklyn]. “They don’t want Trader Joe’s. They don’t want sidewalks crowded with cafes. They want a residential, suburban lifestyle. We’re not looking for innovative ways to do things. I have a hard time setting up a DVR.”

Here’s another story angle for the Times – even among the “gentrified” neighborhoods of Brooklyn, there is tremendous diversity. Just as Brownsville and Sheepshead Bay are very different from Park Slope and DUMBO, so too are these neighborhoods of northern and western Brooklyn different from one another. And did you know that there are neighborhoods in Manhattan that are still – in the 21st century – not Business Class? Strange, but true.

Wythe Hotel

englehardt_hotel.JPG

80 Wythe
Theobald Englehardt (1900)
Morris Adjmi Architects (2012)
Photo: brooklyn11211


Matt Chaban in the Observer:

This was, is and will be the greatest thing Williamsburg has ever seen. It is the pinnacle, the acme, the end. The story of gentrification, at least in this oft-buzzed about corner of Brooklyn, is over — checked at the curved-glass-and-carefully-rusted-steel door outside the Wythe. If Francis Fukuyama needed a hotel room in Brooklyn, this would be it. Thank you, and good night.

Matt & I disagree somewhat here. Not on the fact that the Wythe Hotel is great – it is. And not on the fact that the building itself “is the nicest thing ever built in Williamsburg” – if it isn’t that, it’s damn close. Morris Adjmi’s design of the new, the old and the integration of the two is almost perfect (Theobald would have been proud).

But the pinnacle? The acme? The end? Let’s hope not – we need more nice things like this.

338 Berry Tenants to be Evicted?

The residents of 338 Berry Street (the old Tung Fa Noodle building) bought themselves some time in 2004, but as a result, may be missing out the loft-law protections that were enacted in 2010:

Seeing the writing on the wall, the residents of the building’s work-live lofts signed agreements with the previous landlord allowing them to stay until 2011.

But in 2010 the state revised the Loft Law — to put such artist-occupied spaces under rent stabilization.

The Berry Street tenants claim the legislation supersedes their agreement. But Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Bert Bunyan two weeks ago sided with the current landlord, Mona Gora-Friedman, who wants to show them the door…

The 2010 Loft Law revision qualified the Berry Street lofts for rent-stabilization protection – but it was too late. Bunyan determined the new law didn’t contain language allowing for it to override the tenants’ 2004 agreement.

[Via Brownstoner]

Stapleton is the New Williamsburg

Correction: March 18, 2012

In an earlier version of this article, a timeline misidentified a Williamsburg diner in a photo from 2000. The restaurant was Relish, not Miss Williamsburg Diner.

Domino for Sale

In news that should surprise no one (but is surprising nonetheless), the Observer reports that the Domino site is on the block. Apparently, the Katan Group and their development partner CPC Resources have been shopping all or part of it to potential buyers.

A spokesman for CPCR told the Observer:

We are pursuing various options that will achieve our goals: to realize value for ourselves and our partners, and to insure that development is consistent with all project entitlements

Chief among the entitlements CPCR received (and of primary value to them, their partner and any potential buyers) was approval from the City to redevelop the site for as many as 2,400 housing units. In exchange, CPCR promised to build 660 units of affordable housing, a lot of open space and a public school, all (nicely) designed by architects Rafael Viñoly and Beyer Blinder Belle. Most of this of these benefits were not guaranteed – something that was a very big issue for people opposed to the project back in 2010.

Hopefully we were wrong.