Baltic Bigtime: Negotiating a Tower in Boerum Hill
Last Tuesday, the developer, Joe Chan, met with concerned neighbors and politicians in David Yassky’s office to discuss his plans for a 118-foot-tall, 48,000-square-foot tower at the corner of Baltic and Hoyt in Cobble Hill. The current plan calls for 36 condo units with 27 parking spaces in the basement, street level commercial and second-floor…
Last Tuesday, the developer, Joe Chan, met with concerned neighbors and politicians in David Yassky’s office to discuss his plans for a 118-foot-tall, 48,000-square-foot tower at the corner of Baltic and Hoyt in Cobble Hill. The current plan calls for 36 condo units with 27 parking spaces in the basement, street level commercial and second-floor community facility. In addition to concers about size and scale, neighbors expressed their worries about safety and quality of life during the projected 14-month construction period. The developer was unable to answer a number of questions and the group agreed to convene again in early June.
GMAP Live*Local P*Shark
The developer builds ugly buildings … I agree there should be pressure from neighbors to make the building less ugly. The size, on the other hand, seems OK to me. Building out the the lot line is a GOOD thing, I think … setbacks break up the street and are usually ugly.
New York needs housing, period. More is better.
get your facts straight….Use groups 3 and 4 of the zoning regulations (which medical offices or community facilities fall under) DO count as Floor Area. Sometimes in addition to, sometimes taken away from, the residential floor area.
A few other facts
11 stories is not a “tower”
11 story buildings do not cast shadows for “blocks”
Building the front to the ‘lot line’ is the appropriate way to build so as to maintain the street wall.
To anonymous on Warren St. and anyone else interested:
Hello, I am the point person for the organizing against the tower.
Although the projects are just across the street, two things are different—one-no one would build like that now, two-the projects are on their own blocks, set back, and notice that those that are on the street are only four stories. Just because someone made huge ugly buildings 30 years ago does not mean we must allow it now.
The developer is not the builder of FAAN’s building, Raymond Tung. He has sold it to the present developer, Joe Chan. I have a copy of the plans, and it is still an ugly mammoth.
Meetings have not been unpublicized. They were posted on local yahoo groups. There were flyers put on every door on Warren, Hoyt, Baltic and Butler and at the MET food and Laundromats, about May 9, community meeting to oppose this behemoth. The second meeting, May 16, was invitation only to adjacent neighbors and elected officials because we did not want to overwhelm the developer. He was surprised by the extent of the opposition.
I do not want to give out my email address, but if you are on either the Boerum hill, north slope or the Carroll Gardens yahoo group, I post announcements for all meetings, and minutes from them on those lists.
Up to now, Baltic, Butler and Douglass Sts between Court and Hoyt, have officially been part of Gowanus–not Boerum Hill or Carroll Gardens. However, at the May 9th meeting at the Cobble Hill High School, we were invited (for a second time) to join Carroll Gardens. Since we are in CB6 like them, it makes more sense than to join Boerum Hill in CB2. A vote of the 20 residents (mostly Baltic and Butler was taken, and we all thought it was a good idea. A delegation went to the next Carroll Gardens Association Mtg and we are now officially living in Carroll Gardens–shall we call ourselves Carroll Gardens North or Gowanus Heights, any other ideas?
Press conferences and rallies to come.
I will post more later.
Baltic rabble rouser
Thanks for the good info about community groups. I’m the new person, and I look forward to getting to know the neighborhood. And thanks, anon 1:42, I thought you might be joking about “dreaded” but ya never know…
I like the idea of Bstoner linking to neighborhood groups.
Cat, I have heard about this from the following neighborhood associations. You can contact them for more info.
Carroll Gardens Association
201 Columbia St (btw sackett & Degraw Sts)
Phone: 718 243 9301
The Boerum Hill Association:
http://www.boerumhillbrooklyn.org
To the person who just moved in, go to a meeting if you’re new in the neighborhood, it’s a great way to get to know neighbors and issues. (Brownstoner, wouldn’t it be great to add links to our neighborhood groups on your home page?)
Finally – this is technically in Carroll Gardens; Boerum Hill ends at Wyckoff or Warren St.
And my 2 cents – if this building looks anything like the one where FAAN is, it will be much uglier than the housing projects across the street.
linusvanpelt,
I was being facetious about the “dreaded” Gowanus Houses. This was in reference to earlier comments on this site about how scary they are; having lived within two blocks of the GH for thirteen years I have found them to be anything but.
Can anyone tell me how I find out details about these seemingly unpublicized meetings? I live on Warren btw. Hoyt/Smith (in the Warren Street buildings that crouchback described–not completely unfairly [tho not so nicely!] as somewhat ugly) and we have one of Mr. Chan’s buildings already up (poorly-constructed) in our backyard. There’s another one going up right next to it right now, but they’re now apparently stuck at their third (at least) stop-work order (they’ve hired the worst construction company ever).
I have several questions for the developer. Can anyone fill us in??
Isn’t this site located right across the street from a high school? And not exactly a stellar one either.