Anti-Park Folks in Heights Threatening Suit
September 12, 2005, NY Post — Residents of tony Brooklyn Heights are threatening a lawsuit to stop the development of luxury waterfront high-rises in a planned $150 million riverside park. The plan would build the first major park in 135 years in the borough. Opponents of the roughly 1,200 luxury apartments are consulting with lawyers…
September 12, 2005, NY Post — Residents of tony Brooklyn Heights are threatening a lawsuit to stop the development of luxury waterfront high-rises in a planned $150 million riverside park. The plan would build the first major park in 135 years in the borough. Opponents of the roughly 1,200 luxury apartments are consulting with lawyers just as the project goes up for public comment in front of a local planning board today. Adversaries charge they were promised a park only to have apartments added to the proposal late last year. “It’s not a park, it’s luxury-condominium complex,” said Judi Francis, a leader of the opposition. The 85-acre, 1.3-mile city- and state-funded park has been in the planning stages for years, with the intention that commercial components of the project would fund the estimated $15.2 million annual operating cost. The park is intended to be self-sustaining in order to keep the recreational space from competing “with other parks for scarce resources,” said Wendy Leventer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp.
Park Plan a Cover-Up [NY Post]
There is some confusion that should be cleared up as it pertains to the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The community-developed plan, that actually created this park in 2000, was completely ignored and replaced, in secret, in 2004 with the current “park” plan that includes 6 condo towers right inside park borders. The original plan had sufficient funds from multiple park-friendly revenue generators to sustain the park, in addition to having year round recreation (which this new plan does not). But, because the elected officials are beholden to real estate developers, the community’s plan was pushed aside for the new plan with luxury housing. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund and its officers are suing the State because this will be the first park EVER, in the city or the state, to have private housing within the borders of a public park. If allowed to happen we can all say goodbye to public parks, forever. This is a test case for public parks going forward.
The other issues in the law suit include:
1. the contract for this park does it state that the park must be totally and completely self sustaining, and this park will set a new precedent in that regard, too;
2. the EIS failed to study the true impact on traffic;
3. the EDC failed to study the community’s plan as an alternative. They only studied plans that had even more housing (a probability).
This is a test case for all parks in the future.
We must return to the community’s plan that was accepted by all the electeds, and all the Brooklyn associations back in 2000. We can and will get a real park if we work together on what the community developed back in 2000. That was a public park with year round recreation. A yachting marina, double the size of Battery Park City, condo towers and a seasonal kayaking run is hardly the public recreation Brooklyn has longed for.
We hope the good citizens of Brooklyn will wake up to this terrible non-park plan and join the 9 local community associations who want to return to the 2000 plan, and the Sierra Club in its protest of this non-park plan.
why not put park related shops, and have the retailers foot a special tax for having the privledge of doing business there? these don’t have to be high-rises.
The construction of a massive condo tower seems a sorry compromise. A park would be a fantastic and much-needed addition; however, unless some provision is made for parking, a nearly-impossible situation will be made worse. Already this neighborhood is crowded with visitors on any nice weekend, and many of them drive here. Those of us who live here (and we are not all rich and have to park our cars on the street, and yes, some of us actually need cars for our work) find it impossible to park in our own neighborhood. So if a park and/or condos are to be built, parking is a must!!!!
Sorry c, but as it currently exists, the space between the BQE onramp by Atlantic Avenue and the East River/NY Harbor is not really beautiful. Could be if there was a park there, not abandoned docks and falling down warehouses. I think people are worried that no park will be built at all if some compromise is not made. I do not think that buildings should go up in front of the promenade, but the proposed site nable and does not block promenade views and is reasonable, especially considering that it would facilitate financing for the park.
If someone would establish an endowment of about $300 million to fund the park’s estimated $15 million annual operating expenses, I’d prefer it to building luxury condos. In the absense of some foundation or individual benefactor donating this kind of money, getting an 85 acre park in exchange for condo towers is well worth it.
For the people responding in favor of building– and lamenting only the loss of the park if the suit is won– are you only seeing that a park would be built (and therefore mistakenly only sighing about the park), or are you seeing that buildings of 30 and 40 stories are planned and will bring crowding to the one part of Brooklyn that had truly more beauty and elbow room than anywhere else in the borough?
I love development as much as the next owner, but what the “planners” intend to do to the park is ridiculous. A 30-story tower taking up all the land and blocking what was supposed to be a “grand entrance” at Atlantic. And the planning process has been totally clandestine. You can’t get a straight answer from Wendy Leventer, the other “planners” are quiet, and comments from residents are never even ackowledged. It’s as frustrating as the Atlantic Yards.
We only get one chance to build these things. Make it right.
I can’t imagine what grounds they think they have for a lawsuit. There have been a few bumps in the planning process but nothing to merit a lawsuit. I hope it’s just an empty threat. It’s ridiculous, and as Brownsloper said, sad.
It really is sad. This would be such a bonus for the community and the region.