The situation developing on Williamsburg’s Northside stinks of insider politics and back-room dealings. Quadriad, a development company which counts from Bronx Beep Herman Badillo as a principal, has sat on the site at North 3rd Street between Bedford and Berry for the past couple of years as it has tried to figure out how to build as much residential square footage as possible. This has included building its case for upzoning a small patch of central Williamsburg that was downzoned only recently as a trade-off for allowing the construction of much taller residential towers on the waterfront. Under the current zoning, Quadriad can build 82 market-rate unitson the half-block site. But that’s not enough for them. Under the guise of caring about the little guy, Quadriad is seeking approval to build a 24-story building with 241 units, about a third of which would be affordable housing. And they’re not just looking for a one-time sweetheart deal for the North 3rd location. Badillo and his cronies are pushing the city to create a new zoning designation called R-AF (as in Affordable) to apply to any sites around the city in excess of 40,000 square feet; blogger Brooklyn 11211 reports that there are seven such sites on the Northside of Williamsburg alone that would qualify. Quadriad took one small step towards undermining the contextual rezoning of 2005 when Community Board 1′s land use committee gave the its North 3rd project the thumbs up in a squeaker of a vote last week. If you don’t like the sound of all this, drop Community Board 1 an email at bk01@cb.nyc.gov.
Giving Away the Store [Brooklyn 11211] GMAP
Quadriad’s Williamsburg Project Advances [Gowanus Lounge]
Former Bronx Beep Pitches “Badildos” for Burg [Brownstoner]