Abandoned Projects Mar Brooklyn Landscape
“It looks like a bomb hit over here. It’s just blocks and blocks of everything torn down, and most of the permits are expired,” Williamsburg housing activist Philip DePaolo told the Daily News. “What’s going to happen to all these sites? It’s blight.” Aborted development projects and their related quality of life problems are increasingly…
“It looks like a bomb hit over here. It’s just blocks and blocks of everything torn down, and most of the permits are expired,” Williamsburg housing activist Philip DePaolo told the Daily News. “What’s going to happen to all these sites? It’s blight.” Aborted development projects and their related quality of life problems are increasingly becoming a quality of life issue now that construction has ground to a halt on all but a few of the borough’s residential projects. “Speculators came in hoping to make money and ruined a nice residential neighborhood,” said Robert Bennett of the six-story condo development at 2485 Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay which went quiet about a year ago. And developers don’t have any incentive to clean up or sell off their half-finished projects, as DOB doesn’t levy fines unless specific safety hazards can be cited. What are some problem sites near where you live?
Building Skeletons Haunting Brooklyn Nabes [NY Daily News]
Photo by urbbk
The lot pictured above is on Prospect Avenue near Greenwood Avenue. They have been working on the foundation recently, so I don’t think this particular project is on hold.
Second St and Smith St (Carroll St subway plaza).
Smith St around Douglas (I think) demoed with ply fence and nothing happening for years.
Down goes Brooklyn!!! Down goes Brooklyn!!!
***Bid half off peak comps***
Not just big developments. Lots of flippers got in over their heads, didn’t have enough financing to begin with, couldn’t do it right even during the go-go days, got stuck with SWOs and fines, and now can’t finish or sell. Back during the run-up, these guys could always flip to their buddies or get more investors, but now the equity isn’t there to cover the costs of their mistakes. The flippers and developers who did not bite off more than they could chew and did everything right the first time may have spent a little more than these other clowns budgeted, but they didn’t get stuck. We’ve got a crappy little site like this on our block. The owner overpaid based on the zassumption he could overbuild, screwed up the demo because he failed to inspect for asebstos first, and kept getting SWOs and other fines. In short, he screwed himself by trying to take illegal shortcuts. They didn’t even finish the demo enough to go the seed bomb/community garden route.
Obama will save us, won’t he?
Williamsburg has tons of “i once was a building that housed 3-6 units and now i am an empty lot or a half dug hole or an empty luxury prison. Huge swaths of the entire Northside of williamsburg are trashed with what we in the neighborhood are calling “the Bloomberg blight”. [N10, N9, N8, N7, N6, Metropolitan…) Lots of stuff just sitting on the Southside too…[S3, S4 between Hooper & Hewes. I suppose this is what happens when 80% of the buildings are constructed for 20% of the population…..
There’s this project called Atlantic Yards? Near Atlantic Avenue?? And Pacific Street? And Flatbush Avenue? And Fifth Avenue. And Sixth Avenue . . .
The late and much-missed Bob Guskind had begun a serious commitment to watchdog this issue, which he correctly predicted was going to be huge and growing, on GL; it’s good to see some watchdoggery happening here. Would be great if someone could pick up the banner and do either a blog or a regular feature on this to keep the pressure on. (Funny, isn’t it, how unthinkable it is that any of our local Old Media would rise to the challenge?)
SDS Procida- should clean up their ghost lot on the corner of Congress and Hicks! Money aside,I don’t think it means the neighborhood should have to live with their mess,at least maintain the property while you are looking for financing! There is trash all over, the neighborhood is left to deal with a very dangerous pedestrian blind spot caused by their sidewalk shed and panels of their shed that fall down every time there is a strong wind.
I am sure this is the case with a lot of the other frozen sites too.