Garage Plan for Heights Building Rears Its Head Again
Despite the firestorm of community opposition that greeted a proposal to build a car garage in the courtyard of Brooklyn Heights’ historic Riverside Apartments a couple years ago, the Brooklyn Eagle reports that the building’s owner is still keen on making the parking plan happen. Riverside’s owner, the Pinnacle Group, wants to build a 134-car,…
Despite the firestorm of community opposition that greeted a proposal to build a car garage in the courtyard of Brooklyn Heights’ historic Riverside Apartments a couple years ago, the Brooklyn Eagle reports that the building’s owner is still keen on making the parking plan happen. Riverside’s owner, the Pinnacle Group, wants to build a 134-car, two-level parking garage (one level would be underground) in the building’s courtyard at Joralemon Street and Columbia Place. Pinnacle hired a new architect this time round for the plans, which were presented to Community Board 2’s Land Use and Landmarks Committee last week. The committee voted unanimously against the proposal, which is now headed to the LPC for possible approval. Riverside tenants are opposing the would-be garage for a variety of reasons, including the notion—which Pinnacle denies—that their landlord wants to take the building condo.
Update: A representative for Pinnacle sent us a rendering of the current plan for the garage, above. An image of the old plan and building are on the jump.
Owner of Riverside Apartments Comes Back With New Plan [Brooklyn Eagle]
What’s Going on at Riverside Apartments? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Architecture 101: The Riverside Apartments [Brownstoner] GMAP
Photo of Riverside Apartments by d.p.Hetteix; renderings from the Eagle.
The point of rent control, and to a lesser degree rent stabilization, is to give tenants basic property rights in their apartments. So long as they pay the rent, they have the right to live there — just as owners have the right to live in their buildings so long as they pay the mortgage and taxes and do not evict people whose rights are superior to their own.
There is no rule in law or nature that says that the landlord here has an absolute right to build a parking garage regardless of its impact on others.
12:06 — the annoying people are the ones who “are so into them selfs” (sic) that they think that BH should be rebuilt to their personal specifications regardless of the views of their neighbors or the law.
10:11:
I owned an apartment for 20 years on Columbia Heights, arguably the best street in BH, so I guess I’m not a “peasant.”
Never owned a car the entire time.
One of the beauties of BH is its great subway connections. And then there are the taxis.
Who needs a garage?
— U. Designer
the bha will go nuts over this too.
the peasantry didn’t need cars in the nineteenth century why should they need them today?
the BH residents on joralemon will go nuts over this.
rent control really can ruin people’s lives.
it discourages ambition and stops upward mobility. It is sad to hear from people who hate their building and yet feel trapped for life. Many of the most vociferous complainers in the building pay little or no rent. They have the typical squatters-rights attitude to the building and to private property in general. All of us that decided to sacrifice and buy a little piece of real estate while still young should be so grateful that we did not fall into this NYC rent-control trap. It produces such unhappy people and such dysfunction between owners and their renters. This building is a battleground. I don’t care what happens to it. Sounds like the tenants and the landlord are ideally suited to each other.
The courtyard is viewable from the sidewalk. The comments here are filled with misinformation and ignorance, not to mention a heartless attitude. The reason the building is subject to regulation is that it houses 160 families, or at least 6 which is all NY State requires. This situation is in no way comparable to a brownstowner who is renting out 1 or 2 floors. These families should not be subject to the greed of a racketeering landlord who does not maintain the building and cares nothing for how his tenants sleep and breathe. Yeah, let’s bring all the cars to your doorstep. Let’s see how you like sleeping in a parking lot.
This bldg and garden are all of a piece. They should be an INDEPENDENT landmark. The garden and bldg have eroded after a sucession of slumlords, of which Pinnacle is only the most recent. (Google them and read ther sorry history.) The garden was never an equine bathhouse. T was beautfully planted and for use of tenants and their kids. There’ s a 2004 DHCR order to restore the garden — never done. The tenants re-plant it in the summer. The central fountain still stands. The bldg + gdn were praised by Jacob Riis in his book “How the Other Half Lives.” Probably the grand – and grrat-grandparents of many of those reading this blog lived n much worse than this when they frst came to the US. The bldg is only c.30 percent rent controlled./stabilzed–remainder is market rate. Last of all, if the Riversde should have a garage in the garden, how about a few valet spaces in front of The Bklyn Hitorical Society? There’s just too much space under the entry arch of the Eagle Warehouse — at least a few Lexi/Beemers could fit i n there! Oh, and all those gardens along the Promenade — HUMVEE TIME!
This bldg and garden are all of a piece. They should be an INDEPENDENT landmark. The garden and bldg have eroded after a sucession of slumlords, of which Pinnacle is only the most recent. (Google them and read ther sorry history.) The garden was never an equine bathhouse. T was beautfully planted and for use of tenants and their kids. There’ s a 2004 DHCR order to restore the garden — never done. The tenants re-plant it in the summer. The central fountain still stands. The bldg + gdn were praised by Jacob Riis in his book “How the Other Half Lives.” Probably the grand – and grrat-grandparents of many of those reading this blog lived n much worse than this when they frst came to the US. The bldg is only c.30 percent rent controlled./stabilzed–remainder is market rate. Last of all, if the Riversde should have a garage in the garden, how about a few valet spaces in front of The Bklyn Hitorical Society? There’s just too much space under the entry arch of the Eagle Warehouse — at least a few Lexi/Beemers could fit i n there! Oh, and all those gardens along the Promenade — HUMVEE TIME!
I don’t see why neighbors get a say or TENANTS — they rent! can you imagine if the guy who rents the apartment in your brownstone got a say in how you renovated your home?
I leave this to the owners and wish them luck