Quote:
Originally Posted by RobEss
...Anyway, to sum my point up - I love height, but this tower is going to cause some ugly changes to the surrounding neighborhoods. People have to understand that the majority of the structures being built in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan are of extremely poor quality and turn streets into empty mechanical voids...
|
Everything in bold is entirely subjective.
As is the case with these demands from the neighborhood, what they really want is nothing to be built at all. How do you engage with that? The developer is building two schools, 200 affordable apartments, and cultural/community space, what more do/you they want?
I understand the change is hard, but what about the rest of us? I rent, and because of people/organizations like this who proactively limit the supply of new housing, I pay an artificially inflated amount in rent. They're taking money out of my pocket, and the pockets of everyone in this city who rents. It's ridiculous.
Our position has been:
• We oppose tripling of the floor-area ratio: It is out of scale and a bad precedent for Brooklyn.
9 Dekalb is being built down the street, and will be taller than this.
• We want a real conversation about the density on this block and its effects on our quality of life.
This lot was covered during the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, if they had an issue, they should have raised it then.
• To address required transitional zoning, we demanded townhouses (R6B zoning) on the north side of State Street to create comparable scale and a 50-foot setback.
A 50 foot setback on a site this small basically means nothing gets built here at all.
• Eliminate the State Street loading dock and keep trash off State Street.
The loading dock has to go somewhere, either on Flatbush, State or 3rd. Trucks can either turn right off Flatbush onto State St, or they have to turn off from Flatbush, go down State and then to 3rd, or you put in on Flatbush and cause extra congestion there. State St makes more sense.
• Require a 50-foot setback from Third Avenue for any new building over four stories.
Again, a 50 foot setback on a site this small basically means nothing gets built here at all.
• Build only one tower that is glare-free.
Is it even possible to build a tower that is 100% glare-free...?
• Build only the new high school. (State Street is a bad location for an elementary school due to local traffic on Third Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue.)
So one new high school is okay, but the two the developer is offering to build at no cost to the city is bad?
• Relocate high school operations during eight years of construction.
To where? Talk is cheap.