Size Doesn't Matter on Luquer Street?
Someone on the Forum wonders why no one in Carroll Gardens is stewing over the under-construction 100 Luquer Street—which is set to rise quite a bit higher than neighborhood whipping boy 360 Smith Street. We checked in on the site, between Clinton and the BQE, and found that work on the project is well under…
Someone on the Forum wonders why no one in Carroll Gardens is stewing over the under-construction 100 Luquer Street—which is set to rise quite a bit higher than neighborhood whipping boy 360 Smith Street. We checked in on the site, between Clinton and the BQE, and found that work on the project is well under way. Four stories are already finished; according to DOB permits, it’s going to reach 11 stories and 184 feet—way taller than any surrounding buildings. A rendering (at right) posted on Curbed more than a year ago shows the king-sized, Karl Fischer-designed tower lording over Luquer, but like the Forum poster, we haven’t heard any outcry about it recently. This one just considered a done deal?
100 Luquer is going up?! [Forum] GMAP DOB
Development Du Jour: 100 Luquer Street [Curbed]
360 Smith Developer Tries to Appease Carroll Gardens [Brownstoner]
this place on Luquer won’t be worth a cupful of your mama’s poom poom sauce once AY is built.
Sorry to say it, my friends…wake up and smell the “REALITY.” You are being enslaved.
The What
I’m guessing there isn’t as much of an outcry because the block is mostly rentals? There’s some old timers on the block, but a lot of the apts are rentals w/out owners on premises. Unlike a lot of the place blocks that are owner occupied buildings.
Homeowners who oppose increases in density are selfish. There is NO WAY for the city of New York to expand economically or for our people to have a better standard of living until EVERYONE can afford a decent home. There hasn’t been any significant amount of vacant land in this city since the 1950s. The vast majority of housing units in Brooklyn are located in buildings that date from an era when the borough had 1/4 of its current population. Even these rich fools in Carrol Gardens have a hard time understanding they are paying a fortune to live in housing that was developed for the lower middle class.
People who support zoning laws in NYC are the #1 reason the poor and middle class have experienced nothing but a decrease in living standards DESPITE the city booming economically. FIGHT ZONING LAWS – FIGHT THE RICH WHO SEEK TO KEEP YOU DOWN.
Carroll Gardens is a premium neighborhood. So long as it stays that way, affordable rent is not going to happen.
May I show you something else more in your price range? Sunset Park, perhaps?
If no one wants to move into high density development, all these ugly buildings, then what is everyone worried about? The stupid developers will stop building them as soon as they realize there is no market. On the other hand, if they make pretty good homes they will be full and the developers will continue to build. Is there another way buildings get built? Or is everyone supposed to move to Jersey?
I only want to go a few feet higher than the 50 foot limit but I want to keep my FAR rights as well. I want to add a thousand feet but could add almost 2000 presently under R6, R5 will cut that back some. It won’t kill me but it will increase my construction cost substantially as I have to move other things around to get the additional square footage.
Downzoning is not going to stop development in any event. The people who bought the ILA building now that Murder Incorporated let it go paid 24 Million for it. Anyone who thinks that they are going to be stopped by Landmarking or DoB from building economically is naive. The big builders will not be stopped but the down zoning will stop the smaller owner occupants from fully expanding their properties.
If its really a landmark block landmark it and stick to it. But big builders routinely roll over landmarks. My block has a bus route, many buildings already over 50 feet and a couple Fedders places as well. The architectural virginity of my block was lost a long time ago.
Yeah, the downzoning will increase the value per buildable square foot. But losing buildable square footage will decrease the total value of the property. Letting the open spaces be developed in R6 density will save space for other than residential uses. I continue to oppose the down-zoning though the less rabid of the NIMBYs make a few good points.
I think the reason is outcry is less on Luquer Street (so far) is partly because between the Public Place deals, the 360 Smith Street deal, and the ILA deal, (all occurring in more visible parts of the nabe) the neighborhood residents just plain can’t keep up with all the sudden changes. Not everyone was on blogs a year ago when pictures of these developments started showing up. No one expected so much change in CG such a short time and many people were reading and worrying about AY more than they were perhaps focused on their own back yard. So CG was caught off guard I think. The people on the blogs now loudly crying loudly over their future FAR losses on their brownstones if downzoning happens really take the cake. Why don’t we all just build as high as possible and forget the nabe? Or why don’t they just file their paperwork already since the protection of any historical neighborhood or intimate neighborhood scale here in CG is clearly not in their own best self-interest?
The comment that carroll gardens will be worthless once AY is done does not make sense. Wouldn’t the opposite take place given carroll gardens will be one of the few neighborhoods without giant developments.
Also any development by luquer and the bqe is helpful to that street.
re Chopper:
I think there is definitely a displacement effect, even with zillion-dollar condos. I live in a grubby old-law walkup, which is fine enough because I am nonrich. But there’s plenty of people living in my building who have tons upon tons of money and are still sitting in their $900/month 2-bedrooms, in part just to save money, but also because there’s not that much they could buy around here (aside from the two or three decaying frame houses on the market). With the money they saved, I really wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped $300K and went and lived at Maze or something.
Like Carly Simon’s famous apartment on Central Park West, but less insane, basically. Or it happens in more stages… high-income renters move out of the nicer apartments, middle-to-high-income renters move up into those apartments, etc., etc. Supply is supply, whether it’s on the luxury end or the bargain end — if someone’s goal is just “live in Carroll Gardens,” they probably look at a wide range.