Gowanus Artists Getting Booted for Charter Build
Tenants in the warehouses on 3rd Avenue and Nevins that will be demolished to make way for a new building that will house the Brooklyn Prospect Charter School aren’t thrilled about uprooting, and one has filed a lawsuit over the vacate order landlord Jack Elo issued, according to an article in Patch. The story says…
Tenants in the warehouses on 3rd Avenue and Nevins that will be demolished to make way for a new building that will house the Brooklyn Prospect Charter School aren’t thrilled about uprooting, and one has filed a lawsuit over the vacate order landlord Jack Elo issued, according to an article in Patch. The story says artists lived in the commercial lofts for decades with their old owner’s blessing despite the fact that the lofts weren’t zoned for residential use. Elo, who purchased the buildings 18 months ago, claims that no one lives in the buildings and that he hasn’t broken the law. John Romano, who says he’s lived in his loft for years, has filed a lawsuit against Elo fighting the eviction and has also applied to the New York City Loft Board to see if the building’s certificate of occupancy can be changed so that it’s legal for residential use. Romano says: “We are going to fight and hopefully we can get the community involved. This has been my home for 16 years, the neighborhood is finally turning around and I want to benefit from that.” All of this comes as Brooklyn Prospect Charter scrambles to find a new space for the upcoming school year; even though construction on its 3rd Avenue building hasn’t started, the facility is supposed to be ready by the middle of next year.
Goodbye Artist Lofts, Hello Brooklyn Prospect Charter School [Patch]
More Info on Charter School Coming to Gowanus [Brownstoner] GMAP
I wasn’t dueling with anyone (at least until you made your snarky comment – and now I guess I am dueling; with an illiterate)
What I said was….”it will be interesting to see where all the anti-ED people from AY turn out on this one…”
I said it isnt perfectly analogous – but to put it another way…what possible justification is there for an anti-AY/ED person to have to support the tenants and their legal actions here?
hmmmm…..this will be interesting; while not quite analogous, it will be interesting to see where all the anti-ED people from AY turn out on this one because ithe big issue with ED at AY was that it was for “private use” and all the opponents were all saying they would be adamantly in favor of ED if only it was used for the public good for things like schools and roads.
Obviously here no ED is needed – in fact the people should technically be evicted no matter what – but if there is any consistency (there wont be) all the community groups against ED @ AY should be silent or in favor of eviction in this situation….we will see
This makes no sense. the situations are not analogous and have nothing to do with eminent domain. A completely different set of issues involved.
Not analogous at all? Sorry don’t agree. AY=Government planned to take (a few) peoples apartments to make an arena, office bldg and new residential units – objection was it was a government taking private property to give to private developer. (all involved said uses like school would be fine)
Here=Private Landlord evicting (non-legal) tenants for a school.
If they are non-analogous it is only in that this current situation strips away almost everything controversal (No Government taking, non-owners, illegal occupancy) and comes down to replacing non-legal renters with a school. Therefore any group/individual that opposed AY ED citing the taking for a “non-public” use/benefit – should have NO objection (and really should support) the eviction’s here; that is if they want to be credibly consistent.