Meeting on Toll Proposal: Agitate, Educate, Organize
South Brooklynites have a whole lot of questions about the 577 units of housing Toll Brothers wants to develop alongside the Gowanus Canal. And, if the overflow crowd that filled the community room in St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Residences last night was any indication, there’s a great deal of fear in the community…
South Brooklynites have a whole lot of questions about the 577 units of housing Toll Brothers wants to develop alongside the Gowanus Canal. And, if the overflow crowd that filled the community room in St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Residences last night was any indication, there’s a great deal of fear in the community that those questions won’t be answered before the city gives Toll the go-ahead to build their project. Among the concerns raised: That the development’s impact on already overcrowded schools and subway lines will be disastrous; that the compromised sewage system near the canal will be made even worse; that mom-and-pop business will be displaced; that the project shouldn’t be approved ahead of the wider rezoning Planning is brewing for the area; that the Environmental Impact Study will be a compilation of half-truths; and that the site’s toxic land might not be adequately cleaned up.
Representatives from the Toll Brothers were in attendance, and some of their comments were revelatory. To start, Toll VP David Von Spreckelsen told the crowd that the firm does not own the parcels in question (between the Gowanus Canal, Bond Street, Carroll Street and Second Street) outright—they’re in contract for them—and that they wouldn’t close on the purchases unless the city approves the rezoning. Von Spreckelsen also said that Toll would adequately clean up the property: We wouldn’t be able to sell one condo at this site unless we properly remediated it.
The gathering, which was organized by Friends of Bond Street, was ostensibly held in order to educate residents about City Planning’s public scoping hearing about the project next week, and speakers included CB6 District Manager Craig Hammerman (above left) and Queens City Councilman Tony Avella (right). While there was a great deal of talk about how residents can make their voices heard at the scoping meeting next week, there was also a lot of commentary from Avella in particular (the Council’s zoning/land-use chair and a mayoral candidate) about how the city stacks the deck in favor of developers at the expense of residents’ concerns. Development projects will always be put on the front burner, said Avella. It has nothing to do with a project’s merit. It has to do with the mayor thinking that’s what the city needs. The real estate industry controls the agenda in this city. There was also some chit-chat about a politician who wasn’t present at the meeting. Where is our councilman, asked one person. His name is De Blasio. Where is he?
More coverage of the meeting at Pardon Me For Asking and Found in Brooklyn.
Toll Brothers’ Gargantuan Gowanus Plans Revealed [Brownstoner]
A Look at What Toll Bros. Wants to Redevelop [Brownstoner]
Hey Neighbors! —
I just wanted to let all you guys know that there is a Poll on http://friendsofbond.blogspot.com/ where you can voice your opinion about the developments. Please go and vote!! –
thanks!
–friends of bond
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seems that with such an expensive cleanup propossition (and the impact of dense-high-rise housing is indeed another expensive proposition for it’s overall community impact) current planning is a very wrong-headed direction for developing these sites. Maybe a less expensive cleanup process with different uses are in order here, given the huge costs that the public will be expected to take on under the present proposals.
4:01, For Public Place …
Option One:
Leave a contaminated, blighted waterfront property vacant = $0 cost to taxpayers with $0 profit (an attitude of the past and potentially future 60 years). Continue the middle-class exodus from CG to NJ for family (affordable) housing, contributing to suburban sprawl and harming the environment.
Option Two:
Develop with 50% affordable housing, 50% market housing, retail, community facilities, etc. = $20mm cost to City but $500,000 annual tax revenue = profit to City in 40 years.
Option Three:
Allow 40-sty buildings = profit to City in 4 years.
It’s up to Bill de Blasio to decide what’s best for us. Unfortunately, he doesn’t believe his district has issues – that link on his site doesn’t work!
He’ll get advice from Hammerman and CB6, who has DONE NOTHING for Gowanus as District Manager for the past 18 years despite community calls for help.
Instead, Hammerman and CB6 downzoned the already-protected, mostly landmarked or built-up areas of Park Slope and upzoned 4th Ave. to facilitate the bad architecture under construction today.
So let’s begin the discussion on how much this is going to cost our tax payers.
Once again – you’ve been mis-informed 2:28PM
Keyspan and NYC attorneys did not enter into an agreement for an unlimited sum of funds. NYC was responsible for a potion of the site contamination following acquisition.
There is a finite amount of cleanup costs that will be reimbursed. Cleanup beyond that number will be the burden of taxpayers.
But the community doesn’t need to recover costs of cleaning Public Place site. That must be payed for by KeySpan.
So what are are you takling about at 1:51PM?
Just what public costs need recovering? Please lay that out for the community as we set off down the road HPD has set? What are these hidded costs? You seem to know something about them. Tell us.
Encapsulation and monitoring is preferred by many environmentalists as a desired means of remediation over removal and disposal of the waste. Even after “washing” there may be contaminated byproduct that will need to be transported and encapsulated in landfil.
You would expend millions to test, permit, excavate and processing the contamination. More than 2ft of soil can not be cleaned without excavation – ask Columbia – this is where you’ve been misled. (2ft of topsoil may be cleaned thru bio-remediation)
To recover the cost of a full site cleanup, developers would likely need 3-4 times the amount of housing proposed by HPD for Public Place. The community may not react positively to 40-sty buildings but be sure to ask Toll to evaluate that at the scoping hearing.
See BNL’s 10 year effort on sediment washing and Biogenesis soil washing. You’ll also need more than three acres – here’s a +$42mm demonstration program for comparison.
to 9:36 you seem to miss the whole idea.
(Or it it “shame on you” for your misleading here)
Some of the Columbia proposals were to build the industry that would do the cleanup–there is no pre-cleanup cost involved. The soil remediation would be the work of the new industry. Your cost structures have nothing to do with this idea. You don’t have to pay all that money to haul the contaminated soil away and destroy it if you aren’t hauling it away to contaminate some other place to do soil cleanup. (Do you see any dollar-savings in this idea yet?)
And as for Public Place, KeySpan is paying for that pretense of a cleanup, there are no development cleanup costs there anyway. And why couldn’t KeySpan cleanup funds go to funding a soil remediation industry on the canal if it leads to a better and more through cleanup of the lands?
The the “containment” plans the housing developers have proposed is no “cleanup”, only an attempt to seal the contamination from public contact. The contiminanents will still be there when those seals brake down.
4:24 – shame on Columbia for misleading you! I too saw the innovative designs and concluded the students had no idea about the cost of brownfield cleanup!
Assume remediation of 3 acres at $1,000/sf=$120mm. Construct 600,000 sf of housing at $400/sf= $240mm. Assume 317 market rate units sell for $1mm each and 130 “affordable” units sell for $400,000 each you generate a $9mm profit!