Greenpoint Residents to Sue City Over Planned Waterfront Developments
A group of Greenpoint residents and City Council candidate Stephen Pierson intend to sue the City and developers to stop the Greenpoint Landing and 77 Commercial Street developments, whose 12 towers of 30 to 40 stories would bring thousands of new residents into the neighborhood. The lawsuit will argue that the City’s greenlighting of the…
A group of Greenpoint residents and City Council candidate Stephen Pierson intend to sue the City and developers to stop the Greenpoint Landing and 77 Commercial Street developments, whose 12 towers of 30 to 40 stories would bring thousands of new residents into the neighborhood. The lawsuit will argue that the City’s greenlighting of the two developments, which were said to have no negative environmental impact, was based on an inaccurate, outdated eight-year-old environmental impact study. At the very least, the suit will delay the developments until a potentially more sympathetic mayoral administration comes in, said Pierson. The group announced the suit at a rally Wednesday night where protesters held signs that said “the roof is too damn high” and “Greenpoint does not equal Midtown.” The waterfront was rezoned in 2005 despite opposition from the local community board, paving the way for large-scale development. Above, the future site of Park Tower Group’s Greenpoint Landing at the mouth of Newtown Creek on the East River. Do you think public outcry now has the potential to reverse the rezoning — or force a redesign of the two high-rise developments planned there?
G’pointers to Sue City, Developers Over “Inadequate” Waterfront Tower Studies [Brooklyn Paper]
Photo by Park Tower Group Via Crain’s
They didn’t have to zone this area as they did. And I can see where lots of residents wouldn’t like the plan. But… let’s not get all anti development, anti profit, free to be you and me here! Markets and private property work wonders. Centrally planned public private partnerships become corrupt inefficient boondoggles.
Rents and private property values are determined by what others are willing to pay, and what the owner is willing to sell for. If you can’t swallow that you’re an A-hole ruining this country. Go back to school and learn how NYC got to be a place your foolish ass was attracted to in the first place. It was growth, competition for profit, creativity, freedom, and innovation. Not a bunch of sorry ass complainers and picketers living off an EBT card and artificially low rents.
In america the good stuff should go to those who invent it or work for it. Not those who complain the loudest or those who get to the giveaway first in line!
Read the book ” Downtown, My Manhattan ” by Pete Hamill. Describes change as being a constant in NYC from a historical perspective. Fads come and go…
The locals in GP want their way of life preserved. They have emotional attachment to the community. Multiple generations of memories about to be smacked around by new money heavyweights and soul-less developers. Just history repeating itself. America is not a place where self-preservation of a culture, town, way of life is protected and preserved. The money always talks the loudest and gets it way.
‘intelligent government intervention’ is an oxymoron
As for the affordable canard – there is PLENTY of afforable housing in many neighborhoods throughout Queens and Southern Brooklyn. You may not want to live in those neighborhoods but thats too bad. More desirable ‘hoods cost more $$$$ to live in….I for one would love to live in Tribecca but it turns out I cannot afford it. Such is life. Its a free market in the USA.
Newsflash – cities are dynamic,NOT static. Lived in NYC for 44 years…ALL neighborhoods change,whether we like it or not. More people are staying/moving to NYC – that is a fact. More apartments,THs etc need to be built – simple supply and demand. Congrats to those who have owned for years and are sitting on huge gains, but to think that this neighborhood is going to sit in a time warp is not realistic. You’re choices are to except it/deal with it or take your gains and move to somewhere that is acceptable to you.
Greenpoint Landing and it’s 5,500 units will DOUBLE the population of the northern portion of Greenpoint (Calyer St). Add in the rest of the waterfront development enabled by the 2005 rezoning and you are talking about bringing in 25,000+ new people to an area that currently is home to about 14,000 (according to Census 2010). Greenpoint will become an entirely new place, a bedroom and consumption district for the affluent, unrecognizable to those who have lived here for decades and have invested their lives contributing to the value of the neighborhood. Think of what the word “displacement” really entails.
We need development policy that benefits a broad middle class. Affordable space for manufacturing, creative industries, and startups is essential to a strong, diverse long-term economy with a strong middle class. Witness the success of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, another waterfront area that I’m sure developers would love to turn into condominiums if they had the chance. The 2005 rezoning is a mistake that will echo for the next century unless corrected. Development at about half the proposed density with light industrial, artist space, business incubators, and affordable housing mixed would be so much better for the neighborhood and for the city as a whole.
For the folks who cite “supply and demand” — Where in the City have prices gone down from new development? It is impossible to build enough new construction to meaningfully dent the demand without tearing down entire neighborhoods and building a new City of Towers, Robert Moses style. This is not the way forward. Only intelligent government intervention on behalf of the public interest can help us solve this problem. We must end the “trickle down” development model of the Bloomberg era.
It’s a pretty simple pattern: waterfront real estate in New York fetches some of the highest rents in western world. The people who will be able to afford these units will be extremely high earning individuals. As a neighborhood’s income base increases, so goes the cost of everything else in the neighborhood. If what we want as Brooklynites is a string of homogenous glass and steel towers stretching from the Williamsburgh Bridge to Newtown Creek, then, by all means, these towers are what we need. If what we want is to push income inequality into full-on 1920s territory, then again, these towers are what we need. But if we decide we don’t want to radically alter the character of one of the most intact neighborhoods in Brooklyn–and we shouldn’t need ANY other reason than that–then perhaps the city should reconsider.
Lowrise, high density, mixed use/mixed income. thanks for your thoughtful ideas.
Seventy Five people represent thousands in Greenpoint. when the deal was done, the then city council woman for the district told the head of the Brooklyn Industrial Retention Network (Adam Friedman, now heads up The Pratt Center), that the offer included $20 million in job re training and other goodies. Community Groups were very divided over if they should withdraw their opposition. It is how the real estate lobby owns New York and moves out working class and middle class folks. The city council woman couldn’t turn down the deal and beat off the real estate interested. YEAH FOR THIS LAW SUIT. I say this as a daughter of developers who knows all the dirty tricks pulled.