Details On Brooklyn Bridge Park Housing
For the past five years, ever since the concept of using private development to help fund the ongoing operations of Brooklyn Bridge Park was floated, controversy has swirled. As Dennis Holt reports in The Brooklyn Eagle, the city agreed to revisit the idea, hiring a consultant to oversee the review. The process kicked off on…
For the past five years, ever since the concept of using private development to help fund the ongoing operations of Brooklyn Bridge Park was floated, controversy has swirled. As Dennis Holt reports in The Brooklyn Eagle, the city agreed to revisit the idea, hiring a consultant to oversee the review. The process kicked off on Tuesday night with a public meeting at LICH. At that meeting the Memorandum of Understanding that governs the review process was made available, and it included some interesting details about the potential developments that we were not aware of. The biggest is that if housing is approved, the first site to get developed would be the John Street site (not Pier 1, which has gotten most of the attention); nothing could start there until July of next year. And here’s how big all four projects would be:
What do you make of that?
Does anyone seriously think that the two development sites at Pier 6; one on the south side of One Brooklyn Bridge Park and the other against Furman Street, will diminish anyone’s enjoyment of the Park whatsoever? Ok, so we build out yet some other play areas for kids on those sites with nannies in tow from Cobble Hill and call it a day? The kids will certainly grow up and be pissed at all of us when they have to foot the bill for the collapsing Park Piers- if they should care to live here.
the view plane from Brooklyn Heights IS land-marked. This is outside that land-marked view-plane(piers 1 and 6).
I understand the difference between maintenance and capital payments. But the maintenance of the piers-including the pylons holding it up is a capital expense in most cases. The money the BBP is putting aside to maintain them will be a capital expenditure. Yes the City is hard up now but the piers won’t have to be redone for a while- they are putting the money aside now.
and its Robert Moses fault the Dodgers are in LA(really)…
BHS… this is NYC; school boundaries are set in stone for the most part, and the current public schools surrounding BBP don’t have the capacity for the current population, even with expansions like PS8. Dumbo didn’t exist 15 years ago… the school cap hasn’t grown since then. And even though it needs to expand, it may not.
As for “preserving views for rich people in Brooklyn Heights is more important than providing city services”… the Brooklyn Bridge Park (which has been in some form of plans for two decades) and Promenade are for everyone. It’s part of NYC, and about much more than that simple grievance.
And Bxgrl… Spot-on about Moses.
Ah, usually don’t think of the gray blocks as renderings. It would be interesting to see some. I’m surprised none of the opponents have done any yet, like those that have been going around of Atlantic Yards.
For Pier 6, PS 261 is just about as close as PS 8, and I believe it has extra capacity. If not, PS 38 a few blocks down Pacific has plenty to spare, so some incoming students could be moved from 261 to 38, freeing up seats at 261.
On the John Street site, PS 287 is just about as close as PS 8, and it has ton of empty spaces.
School boundaries are not set in stone, and can be shifted to keep down overcrowding.
The issue is that many well-off parents would rather send their kids to on overcrowded “good” school rather than one that is “not good” (which often means too many minorities).
Robert Moses was brilliant and egomaniacal. It’s great to point out his big projects and talk about how much he accomplished- but had he not been stopped, he would have been destructive, not visionary. As it was, he destroyed neighborhoods, and lives in the process. I appreciate a lot of things about Robert Moses but his ego, his lack of caring about the effects of his building- not so much. No one should have the power he was given- he used it and he abused it.
BHS, they do renderings just based on size of proposed buildings. the buildings are usually just big gray boxes.
I’ve saw the renderings made by people who were against these buildings some years ago, but they felt skewed. would love to see official renderings.
What schools do you think they’d go to? They’re zoned for PS8. Same as the Witness bldgs btw.
I was not around then, but I assume options were explored then the current agreement was created 5+ years ago.
It seems to me that the real time to explore options was before an agreement was signed.
There are no renderings because the companies that will develop the buildings have not been chosen yet.
I don’t know the details of the 1bbp deal, but overall residential development is the most profitable use of the the land, and therefore the bids should be higher than other uses.
I do think that the public should continue to watch the development selection carefully to make sure there are no “sweetheart” deals going on.
In terms of schools, the average ratio of households with children to total households in this area of Brooklyn seems to be 1 to 3.
Assuming 1 public school child per household (households with multiple kids balanced by some with younger kids and ones going to private schools), that would be around 300 kids total.
I know there are elementary schools in the greater area with excess physical capacity, so the total impact to schools would be around a dozen new teachers, ramping up over the 5-10 years it will take these buildings to be built and filled.
Given the current budget state of the city, I would love to see the Watchtower properties get redeveloped and have that tax money go into the city’s general fund.
Nothing is being held up by the public review process.
I take exception that people who aren’t 100% behind 100% of this building is a NIMBY-type or anti-development. I live in this neighborhood, and were all this to happen, as I’m sure it will, this is good for me. Sure, inventory will be flooded for a while, but eventually this neighborhood will be in a much better position — cool people, cool shops — real state values will rise.
My questions are simple:
-Have we explored all the options?
-Can we see renderings of this? The John St building in particular.
-Are we getting the best deal possible (conventional wisdom is that the ball was dropped on the 1bbp deal). Less than 900k a year for that John St site seems very low. That site is incredible
-Where are these kids going to go to school? It’s 1000 units. You can argue that the city doesn’t have money, but you have to pull that thread all the way.. how much to build the classrooms for these kids? Etc.. etc.
I dont have a link for the Witness tax idea. Not sure it’s been floated publicly or not.
Can I just say I’m pretty thrilled to have these new mini-parks and all my out-of-town friends and family have been very impressed. NYC lags so far behind other major world cities in terms of redeveloping the waterfront for recreation. So while I admit I’m not an expert on this project and appreciate that there may be troubling aspects that need to be resolved, overall I am happy to see private funding support public access.