Tuesday Linkage
Bushwick Art Project. Photo by Aaron Geiser ‘Blight’ in the Eye of the Beholder [NY Times] Bensonhurst Residents Unhappy with Trash Plan [NY Post] Sunset Park to Get New Recycling Plant [Sunset Parker via Bklyn Record] Historic Cobblestones Raise Ire of Chelsea Residents [NY Post] Once a Housing Scandal, Now a Hope [City Limits] Long…
Bushwick Art Project. Photo by Aaron Geiser
‘Blight’ in the Eye of the Beholder [NY Times]
Bensonhurst Residents Unhappy with Trash Plan [NY Post]
Sunset Park to Get New Recycling Plant [Sunset Parker via Bklyn Record]
Historic Cobblestones Raise Ire of Chelsea Residents [NY Post]
Once a Housing Scandal, Now a Hope [City Limits]
Long Post on Appraisal Inflation [Matrix]
Jail as Affordable Housing [The Real Estate]
Yassky: Developers’ Trojan Horse? [Amsterdam News]
Loved the article on the cobblestone walks in Tribeca.
What’s next for some of these privileged people? “I don’t like the sun rising in the east, it’s right in my face. We should do something about that, after all, I paid a lot to live here.”
But one very insighful comment in that article was that the threat of Ratnerville has stymied other development — had it not been for this threat, you know Boymelgreen would have turned Pechter’s into some glorious (and expensive) loft condos. So Ratner deliberately creates blight so he can use it as an argument in favor of getting everything he wants.
I think the most disturbing comment in the Times article on blight is the comment that a lot of small property owners in an area make it difficult for big developers to build their projects. So what does that mean? Now area with many property owners, like in brownstone neighborhoods, are now fair game? It’s bad enough that the word “blight” is up for grabs and based on the mood of the day practically. But now we are to think that area groups of property owners are not as good or as important as big developers? Somewhere in there is a very unconstitutional idea that is gaining an unfortunate amount of traction.