Calls for Considering Watchtower Props for BBP
Brooklyn Heights Blog reports that at a Wednesday meeting of the Community Advisory Council to Brooklyn Bridge Park, the council voted in favor of a resolution pushing for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to have its consultants “study potential revenue generating ideas and expense reduction options, including fundraising/sponsorship opportunities and options involving the Watchtower properties.”…
Brooklyn Heights Blog reports that at a Wednesday meeting of the Community Advisory Council to Brooklyn Bridge Park, the council voted in favor of a resolution pushing for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to have its consultants “study potential revenue generating ideas and expense reduction options, including fundraising/sponsorship opportunities and options involving the Watchtower properties.” The resolution follows similar recommendations from Community Boards 2 and 6 about future funding for Brooklyn Bridge Park in the wake of a report the corporation released regarding possible funding solutions for the park that do not involve housing. The possible sources of revenue examined included things like creating a park improvement district that would charge fees to nearby businesses and property owners.
Advisory Council: Back to the Drawing Board on Housing Alternatives [BHB]
Options Weighed at Public Hearing for BBP [Brownstoner]
BBP Housing Alternatives Still Being Considered [Brownstoner]
Alternatives to Housing Considered for BBP [Brownstoner]
i feel like what im saying in this thread completely flies in the face of what im saying in the mansion thread :-/
i must be one of those hypocrites. or maybe i just see both sides and laugh at how lame they truly are?
*rob*
“The revenue from the alternatives will not be sufficient [to cover the annual maintenance budget of $16 million], but new funds could help reduce the scale of the development coming in.”
This is about BH residents longstanding opposition to new housing which will indeed fund the park in the long run. The plan calls for no general revenue taxpayer funds to be used for the part; this fails to meet that criteria.
yes rob- you do sound like a dick. And your assumptions aer truly dickish.
quote:
How about they funnel some of that tax money to Crown Heights, or other less wealthy neighborhoods?
uh… i dont wanna sound like a dick, but i probably will come across as sounding like it anyway, but a TON of our tax money already is funelled into those neighborhoods via government programs. (and i dont really have a problem with that), just the argument that tax money isnt going into less wealthy neighborhoods. sorry, but poor neighborhoods (and i dont consider crown heights poor actually, but other neighborhoods, yes)…
look at it this way… who pays the most in taxes and who takes the most in social welfare programs? rich neighborhoods or poor neighborhoods? no matter how you slice it the moderately rich (not the super rich they pay shit in taxes really) to lower middle class is funding everything. kinda sucks.
*rob*
You’re probably right, g-man. I’m just one of those people who believes in overkill, whether it’s making Thanksgiving dinner or obsessing over details. If it were my project I probably would have written doomsday scenarios for the year the sun dies and how it would affect the plants in the park. 🙂
i agree with q man
what is often overlooked in the heated rhetoric of “building in the park” is that this area was never a park. the city could have opted to build nothing but high rises along furman street if it had been so inclined. The park was created from an area zoned for manufacturing use. A small part of that area was set aside for housing. The drumbeat of the anti-housing lobby stems from the original BIG LIE, which was that somehow condos would be built on parkland. Like all good big lies, it has taken grip of people’s brains and will not let go.
Pilots are in lieu of taxes. Construction in Brooklyn heights cannot get 421a tax abatement unless they are at least a portion affordable housing. There would be no ground lease payments to the park as the park doesn’t own the Watchtower land and doesn’t have the money to buy them.
The argument, and I am not claiming to be an adherent, is capturing real estate taxes from buildings outside of the park is preferable to constructing new buildings in the park. PILOTs remain the funding scheme; what buildings are having taxes redirected would chnage.
bxgrl, what park planners did not foresee is the downturn in the market. I am fairly certain that if the housing market remained strong, park planners would have already issued RFPs for the development sites.
the witnesses are slowly but surely leaving Brooklyn. interestingly, for folks who await imminent armagedon they seem in no hurry.
they still have to sell the bossert remember, then they can look to their fulton ferry buildings. in due time these sturdy and handsome industrial plants will be adapted to new uses but it may take a while. Additionally, as in many similar conversions, the city may grant a period of tax abatement further lengthening the time when revenues from these buildings actually start kicking in.