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June 11, 2007
Largesse and Largeness for Quadriad in The Burg
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]
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Comments
You're right. God forbid you have tall buildings in an ugly neighborhood. They can find the affordable housing elsewhere.
Posted by: Jonz at June 11, 2007 10:10 AM
Jonz, thanks for your concern but there is a reason the long time residents pushed for the height controls in the highland area. So please stfu.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 11, 2007 10:14 AM
Cap it at 8 stories for residential and then build a farm on top.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 11, 2007 10:40 AM
I agree with 10:40 up to a point. I see that on the original maps of Williamsburg this was farm land. Sticking with the principle of keeping the neighborhood historical this would be a good plan.
Posted by: NIccolo' Machiavelli at June 11, 2007 11:11 AM
a 10-9 committee vote hardly qualifies as giving the project "the thumbs up"
Posted by: Anonymous at June 11, 2007 12:39 PM
Yes, lets try low-income high-rise housing. Its only failed 10,000 times so far in America. Lets have another try just to make sure.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 11, 2007 1:05 PM
Hey, 10-9 or 19-0, majority rules. You people want affordable housing and low-rise buildings. You can't have it either way. Personally I think affordable housing is much more important. Clearly you don't, and you care more about 24 stories (hardly tall by NYC standards) than giving long-time residents a chance to remain.
You people are the hypocrites.
Posted by: hi! at June 11, 2007 1:23 PM
Hi "hi!." Majority rules when the vote is the last word. But the Land Use Committee vote is merely a recommendation to the full board, and if I was on CB1, 10-9 would tell me that there are serious concerns about the project.
Also, as Mr. B points out, the rezoning of Williamsburg laid out the ground rules not too long ago: mid-rises on the waterfront, possibly made taller by the construction of affordable housing elsewhere in the community district. If Badillo, Sitt and company are so high on affordable housing, they can build nothing but on this site and sell the development bonus to projects on the waterfront.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 11, 2007 2:22 PM
By all accounts, this project has no traction at the city level. So the developer has had to bamboozle the community to have any chance of doubling the number of luxury condos he can build. So far, they have succeeded in bamboozling one local community group (the People's Firehouse)and a narrow majority of the land use committee. If there are back-room deals, they are being made from the bottom up.
Posted by: AnonZ at June 11, 2007 6:04 PM
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