Posted Aug 5, 2014, 2:51 AM
|
|
BANNED
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Somewhere
Posts: 1,460
|
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/ny...park.html?_r=0
The Battle of Brooklyn Bridge Park
Quote:
When city officials said they were ready to solicit requests for proposals to develop two parcels of land north of Atlantic Avenue and directly south of the building, they altered a 2006 plan so that it would include affordable housing, for moderate- to middle-income residents. Some condo owners reacted with unfiltered fury.
The messages expressed outrage over how the two new buildings would increase crowds in the park and cramp the already oversubscribed local public school, P.S. 8. Other residents were angry that a 31-story tower would block their views. When some people intimated that affordable housing could bring down property values, the debate took a tone that was offensive to Nina Lorez Collins, a writer and former literary agent.
“It felt very Nimby, like ‘We don’t want poor people in the backyard,’ ” she said recently.
“After two months of those comments, I sent out an email to everyone. I said, ‘You are making me ashamed to be your neighbor, please stop.’ ”
The tone of the posts softened, but the uproar has not ended.
[...]
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation is the nonprofit entity that operates and oversees construction at the park, with a board of directors chosen by the city and the state. In the spring, as the last two sites scheduled for development, both on Pier 6, were about to go up for bidding, it announced that because real estate values had soared along with park use, the park was in better financial shape than projected. Fewer market-rate units could be built, and some of the excess funds could be used to start paying to repair the 12,000 wooden pilings under the piers, a long-term goal.
The new mayor saw an opportunity to chip away at his administration’s goal of adding 200,000 units of affordable housing and said 30 percent of the units in the new buildings would be set aside for lower-income tenants.
“For us, that makes a lot of sense,” Regina Myer, the president of the park corporation, said. “It has the ability to look more like the community that we’re in.”
If housing in the park was required to produce revenue, some neighborhood residents wondered, how could the city add units that would not contribute money?
Party preparations. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times
“People need to get out of this paradigm,” Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said in an interview. “These are two legitimate public policy objectives we can achieve here. We are able to maintain this park and advance the public good.”
But just as Mr. de Blasio seized an opportunity, so did opponents of his plan. A group called the People for Green Space Foundation (including several Save Pier 6 participants) formed to sue the park corporation last month.
A judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting park officials from taking any action until the court could determine whether a new environmental impact study — replacing one from 2005 — was required.
The next hearing is in September.
“The intent is to have a supplemental environmental impact study,” said Frank Carone, a lawyer for People for Green Space.
“I’ve told my clients that we’re not bringing litigation to stop development but to do it more carefully.”
Mr. Carone, by the way, successfully argued in May for the State University of New York to sell Long Island College Hospital, just blocks from the park, to private developers. That also united the community — in rage, against the closing of the hospital.
|
|