Williamsburg Rezoning - Property Owners to Lose 25% of Property Value
Our local Community Board has rezoned 13 blocks along Grand Street in a fast-track process that has escaped the required public review. While these kind of initiatives typically take years to complete due to the required public hearings and analysis, this time the entire process has be compacted to a record-breaking 90 days. The Community…
Our local Community Board has rezoned 13 blocks along Grand Street in a fast-track process that has escaped the required public review. While these kind of initiatives typically take years to complete due to the required public hearings and analysis, this time the entire process has be compacted to a record-breaking 90 days. The Community Board claimed this lightening fast re-zoning was necessary to stop a 14-story development that was pending approval at the Department of Buildings. However that developer, Michael Lichtenstein, has already agreed to limit his project to six stories, which is allowable under the current zoning, and will sign a contract to that effect. Yet the Community Board continues to push forward without any thought or consideration for the residents as well as property owners of the Grand Street Neighborhood who will suffer tremendous consequences including severe financial repercussions, loss of vital community facilities (daycare, etc.) and diminished quality of life, as a result of this overzealous down zoning.
A group representing over 100 of the 254 property owners affected by this process; the overwhelming number did not know what was happening and no one had the opportunity to represent themselves. Many other property owners still do not know that their properties will potentially be stripped of hundreds of thousands of dollars of value if this re-zoning takes place. Additionally this re-zoning threatens to bankrupt many current development projects and could leave many blocks blighted by broken and bankrupted projects as a direct consequence. Many ask how could this happen and what can we do? Special interest groups in the community and on the Community Board are pushing this through without considering the community impact. We have the support of Assemblyman Vito Lopez but we need more help to stop this.
We want Williamsburg to keep moving forward and not backwards especially in this recessionary time. How do they pick 13 blocks in the whole of Brooklyn to attack and claim there is no opposition? How do they chop 25% off property values without explaining that to people…no wonder they think there is no opposition. The big buildings going up will survive the rezoning because they can afford to fight legally while the small guy gets punished. Imagine leveraging yourself to build, taking years to get plans approved only to have the rules changed….20 projects are in this circumstance that may lead to bankruptcies. Grand Street is the commercial street that is being slammed, not the residential areas we all want to preserve. What kind of message does this send to developers across the city when the public review process can be bypassed and neighborhoods targeted that are ill equipped to fight back? Will financing dry up for everyone with banks getting burned?
Grand Street Homeowners and Business Association
This now looks like a done deal but I can tell you that if the Michael Lichtenstein (developer mentioned in the OP’s post) is the same as the one doing a development next door to me, you should be thankful that rezoning went through. He wouldn’t have followed through on any of those promises he was giving you. We were told by him directly that the building next door would be 3-4 stories (it’s six) and that they would do everything to safeguard our property. What followed was illegal asbestos abatement, illegal mechanical demo, damage to the neighbor’s foundation and to our house, plans not submitted resulting in four rows of poorly built protective catch platforms filled with many pounds of mortar falling onto and damaging our properties, lies about what was planned for the foundation (plans on file at DOB don’t match actual site) and a whole host of other things. To top it off, the building is the equivalent of a Fedders special.
Be glad that you are not sitting there in 2 years with a 14 story building after those promised plans to limit it never actually were made good on. You’ll only have 6 stories of ugly instead of 14.
OP gets it wrong in the first words – the Community Board has not “rezoned Grand Street”. The rezoning was a City Planning action, which the Community Board reviewed and approved. With the exception of the developer of a 14-story tower in the rezoning area, not a single property owner spoke in opposition to the rezoning; many property owners (and residents) did speak up in support.
The leader of this last ditch effort to kill the zoning was at the Community Board hearing in January when the rezoning was presented by City Planning, and he did not speak up in opposition. He also did not speak up at two subsequent public hearings (Boro Prez and City Planning). It was only at the first City Council hearing – LAST WEEK- that he came forward. By then, it was too late for the Council or City Planning to make any changes.
(This is an owner/developer of multiple properties on Grand Street.)
11:25 – unfortunately, permissive zoning hasn’t resulted in any quality architects being hired in the neighborhood. Everyone is building cheap and calling it luxury. Look at the new building on the corner of Grand and Roebling – cheap and ugly and 100% R6.
I have to agree with 3:07 in the a.m. that the main issue is “Height Factor.” As a Grand Street homeowner of a 19th century building that exceeds any of the FARs in question I feel that it would be totally in my interest, yet totally hypocritical of me to support R6B.
At 12:38AM, I’m turning off Letterman. At 3:07AM I’m asleep after a full day working together with others.
R6 sure is great: How about the developer building limit up, side-to-side, front-to-back on the lot lines on the side street but just inside the commercial overlay? There’s the neighbor you need! Look at all the A/C’s you won’t need when your lot line windows are gone. Get ready to retrofit power vents for those new interior/illegal bathrooms. Check out FDNY on your chances in case of a fire.
To the residents and community board who pushed forward the downzoning: You already DID benefit from increases in your property values when these developers purchased the land for development. That land could have (and totally would have) sat there unsold if the downzoning had been in effect before this. But once the land was sold you told the developers no, you can’t build what you intended to build.
There is a huge difference between what a developer will pay for land knowing he can make the money back. And what he’ll pay (likely NOT buy it at all) if he won’t make the money back building a condo with only 4 residential floors. That’s maybe 16 units at the most.
And because they have to build the building cheap, because they won’t make as much money on it as a 14-story building, that means…FEDDERS specials coming to your ‘hood. Good going, people!
Downzoning like this offers no incentive whatsoever for a developer to hire a good architect and build a quality, beautiful building. They simply will not make any money off 4 floors by building it high-end. Not even 5, 6 or 7 floors will offer enough incentive. This is exactly why we do see so many crappy cheaply built new buildings in downzoned neighborhoods.
On average for a typical 25X100′ lot is a 500 square X $200 per buildable foot equals a $100,000 loss for raw land. Then you have a “maximum base height of 40′ feet which means that after deducting for structural, slab, c-channel, sheetrock, sub-floor, and hardwood flooring, you’re left with cielings that are just over 8′. How much would you need to deduct for an undesirable space. Who would want to rent or buy commercial stores and apartments with these low cielings? Or you can sacrifice an entire floor and you can have a great space. If you do the math, your loss starts at 100K and easily doubles by the time you take the rest of your lumps. BTW, If your on a wide street with the same size lot, you lose 2,500 square feet X $200 per buildable square foot, your loss starts at $500,000. Now subtract the other factors and you are left immense pain. I guess it’s not a problem when it’s not your loss. The owners of the towers have agreed to issue a “Restrictive Declaration” to limit the project to six stories. This deal was cut with the newly formed Grand Home and Business Owner’s Organization. The legal document along with an agreement to stop work at the site will be delivered to the City Council on 3/25/08. Why should blocks and blocks of property owners have all this equity vanish. Instead, the code should be worked on to eliminate “Height Factor” and just leave the R6 zoning in tact. R6B is fine for narrow side streets, not for streets with double yellow lines.
The TRUTH IS that the R6B zoning WILL help the neighborhood, but a greedy and dishonest developer is trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
A point-by-point rebuttal would be pretty hard, but here are a few salient facts:
In terms of context, R6B is right for most of the area – it allows four stories at the street with an additional fifth story set back. With very few exceptions, most of the buildings along Grand, South 1st, North 1st/Fillmore and on the avenues are four stories or less. UPzoning to R6A would allow six stories at the street with a seventh
set back. This 1.5 to 2 times the height of the existing context, and clearly not in scale with most of the blocks in the rezoning.
R6B has no impact on affordable housing. Owners developing now are trying to beat the clock to use the exemption and NOT build affordable housing. Condos (not rentals – just condos) developed after July 1 would have to include affordable housing in order to get the tax break. Since four of the blocks are in the inclusionary housing bonus
zone, owners in those blocks would actually get a small INCREASE in floor area for doing affordable housing.
Finally, R6A would NOT solve all the problems they cite – both R6B and R6A disallow the community facility bonus; both zones have the same commercial overlays, so the same use groups; etc.
R6B IS the right zoning for much of the neighborhood – it will result in a lower scale, more livable blocks, as opposed to an overbuilt condoburg as we see going up on the northside east of Driggs. For the
sake of 500′ or less, they want to throw the whole thing out, or turn it on its head.
There’s so much misinformation here! The zoning amendment’s purpose is to support 5 or 6 story buildings in the neighborhood, not huge towers that will block out people’s light and overwhelm the already overburdened infrastructure. I am a propery owner for 23 years in this neighborhood and want a nice place for my family, not just a chance at cashing in on selling out to a developer.