Brooklyn Council Member To Chair Landmarks
After decades of relative neglect, Brooklyn saw its fortunes at the Landmarks Preservation Commission rise in recent years, with five historic districts in the borough being created in the last eight years. A new round of city council appointments announced on Thursday bodes well for Brooklyn preservation too: New council member Brad Lander was tapped…
After decades of relative neglect, Brooklyn saw its fortunes at the Landmarks Preservation Commission rise in recent years, with five historic districts in the borough being created in the last eight years. A new round of city council appointments announced on Thursday bodes well for Brooklyn preservation too: New council member Brad Lander was tapped to chair the Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses committee. And in related appointments of Brownstoner interest, Domenic Recchia was named chair of the Land Use Committee, Letitia James got Sanitation and newbie Steve Levin snagged Planning, Dispositions and Concessions. Are the preservationists out there cheered by the choice of Lander?
Brooklyn Delegation Gets Juice in City Council [NY Post]
Photo from Pardon Me For Asking
If Al Vann has nothing to do with the community development of Bed-Stuy, then how come so many New Yorkers are migrated to the community? Years ago, this would have been unthinkable, but now Bed-Stuy is a destination. As far as Crown Heights goes, he only represents the northern part and was a big supporter of the Crown Height North landmarking, providing City Council funding for the study that led to it. You Al Vann haters are either ignorant or are hacks for Mark Winston Griffith, who has supposedly done so much for the community. You should really have some understanding of things before you start commenting on these blogs
queenscape, I don’t get the “puppet of affordable housing” tag either. From what I’ve seen, Brad has a strong record in the areas of housing, planning and economic development – his work at CB 6 was generally very thoughtful and on point, and as other posters have noted, he has a strong record of actually working in the community (certainly in my neck of the woods – “lower” park slope.) He is one of the smartest guys around, with an amazing ability to digest mounds of information. I sure don’t get what the problem is with affordable housing – especially in light of the many politicians who are spend their time sucking up to big developers who are not building for folks who have been in the neighborhood for decades.
Maybe the City Council will wake up when they see or more likely -don’t see Al Vann at work. Wasting our tax dollars and preening for the press is about all Al Vannished does.
QC, You may disagree with Lander’s views on housing, but I think in light of the 18 years of work he’s been doing in the community on housing, econ development and planning, “puppet” is the wrong word. He comes by his views independently.
Please explain what “puppet of the affordable housing” means, queenscrap. That’s a pretty loaded statement.
Brad Lander is another puppet of the “affordable housing” movement and is not to be trusted. And this article was printed in the Courier-Life, not the NY Post. See here:
http://yournabe.com/articles/2010/01/25/brooklyn/courier-yn_brooklyn_front_page-councilnameschairs.txt
correction to the post: Domenic Recchia was named chair of the Finance Committee, not Land Use (which went to Queens CM Leroy Comrie).
This is good for Bklyn. The Finance Committee is one of the most powerful (along with Land Use) of all the committees in the Council. Last year, both were chaired by Queens council people, but with Brooklyn getting one, the boro has a bit more power.
I don’t know anything about Brad Lander, but the fact that there is a lot of ongoing preservation activity in his district of Park Slope should be encouraging. I hope he is an active and ardent preservationist.
On the other hand, I can’t believe the City Council made Al Vann the Majority Whip and head of the Community Development Committee. He has one of the worst attendance records in the City Council, and his record on Community Development in his district is spotty, at best. He represents Bed Stuy, and most of Crown Heights, but since he lives in BS, very few of those development dollars seem to cross Atlantic Ave.
I doubt preservationists are goign to be super happy, but Brad is trained and served as a Planner for a long time, which means that he (HOPEFULLY) will be able to see both sides of the issues, and not always side with one or the other.