[tackledspoon]

Originally Posted by Kroy Wen

^in addition, this was a parking lot in a very seedy area that stood vacant for years. This isn't the traditional Fort Greene, this is a transitional area with warehouses, gas stations and of course BAM- which is now becoming an 'arts district'. There are already plenty of highrises around as well.

Highrises and luxury skyscrapers are very different. You could build a fairly large high rise on this lot without picking away at the fabric of the neighborhood. I'm all for the development of Brooklyn, but I think it should be done with consideration for the traditional neighborhood structure of Brooklyn. I actually did look into the site and see that it was built on a vacant lot, but the fact that it's an improvement over a vacant lot doesn't justify the scaling of the project or the type of development that it's going to encourage in the area.

Some of them might be beautiful but they are very common not only in Brooklyn but if you'd bother to look at other cities, they are common theretoo. In other words, there's nothing special about them

I'll ask that you not put words in my mouth. I never claimed that the existing building stock in Fort Greene was unique, only that it was beautiful and functional. For large-scale projects, I believe that uniqueness is a necessity, but for low and mid-rise developments, functionality is king. These buildings are nothing special in isolation, but working together, they provide an excellent urban fabric.

In case, you're not aware, the amount of developable land in Brooklyn is finite. If you don't build up, the land will become so expensive and the available housing stock so exclusive that the very people you hate to see live in this tower, will be the only people that can afford to live in Brooklyn.

Buildings like this one are not designed to lower demand or price. Building a 30-story luxury condominium tower in the middle of a (relatively) reasonably priced neighborhood is more likely to create more demand for similar projects and thus lead to the further degradation of the neighborhood and the pricing-out of people who have lived there for decades. Brooklyn does have to build up, but it doesn't need to build skyscrapers, particularly ones of the luxury variety.

I'm sure the two story piece of junk with a graffiti filled blank wall on Ashland that was here before was a better contributor to the neighborhood.

Again with the putting words in my mouth. I am not anti-development and I don't deny that this is an improvement over an empty lot, but almost anything would have been an improvement.

There will be a few hundred people living there, and who knows some might even be people from the area right now. How do you know they are not going to shop and spend time in the neighborhood?

Go take a walk through Hell's Kitchen, where projects like this are a dime a dozen. On blocks dominated by these things, even when there's retail in the ground floor, street activity is minimal. Time and again, studies have shown that big, filing cabinet-style residential towers encourage insularity.

If there was no Manhattan, Brooklyn would be its own city and it would have tall towers anyway.

This is totally irrelevant. It didn't develop that way and any argument based on what would have happend if it had is totally unpersuasive, as its base lies outside of reality.