Curb Cutting Spreading in Carroll Gardens
On October 16th, the Four-Borough Neighborhood Alliance held a press conference on the corner of 4th Place and Court Street to draw attention to the distrubing trend of home owners “curb-cutting” to create driveways in front of their houses. A concerned reader was nice enough to provide us with the above photos all withing a…
On October 16th, the Four-Borough Neighborhood Alliance held a press conference on the corner of 4th Place and Court Street to draw attention to the distrubing trend of home owners “curb-cutting” to create driveways in front of their houses. A concerned reader was nice enough to provide us with the above photos all withing a block of where the press conference was held. You can probably guess where which side of the debate we come down on.
Alliance Looks to Clean Up Courtyards [CG Courier]
Buicks Among the Bushes [NY Times]
I can tell you that the houses in your second pic, are all built with garage doors and driveways, since I grew up in a similar house in a different area.
Everyone goes bonkers over how things were in past years. In years past, nobody cared about the historic houses, which is sad, but parking or driveways should not be any big issue. And whoever said don’t have a car, that’s only for the city, not Brooklyn. There should be more parking not less, and for cheaper prices in the city streets and such.
I think all those curb cuts are at least 10 years old, and probably 20 — except maybe the one on the newish building at the southwest corner of 4th & Court (the tall gray ugly building with the junker in the courtyard). Those red-brick Bayonne houses have been there since the 1960s, along with their driveways. The tall ugly gray building went up about 5 or 7 years ago; a ramshackle one-story had been there before, it may have had a curbcut already. 4th btw court and smith is the worst block in the neighborhood for cuts; the most offensive ones are up on Sackett (I think), in front of actual brownstones, 3 or 4 in a row.
Anyone who has lived in San Francisco knows how awful curb cuts make the car-owning life. Death to curb cuts. But the fuss over these rings false.
If new curb cut is legal should be on nyc.gov
department of buildings for permit.
Easier to call 311 and just make a complaint.
And call community board and tell them to put a stop to all further curb cuts.
I hate them. And they are granted too easily.
Building on my corner was erected few years ago-
they got curb cut for parking lot in back for 3 or 4 cars.
Then they decided to build garage – that will only 2 cars instead of orig.4 – and get curb cut extended taking away yet another street parking spot. Then only 1 car parks in garage – other is just storage for restaurant. So we lost 2 spaces for 1 persons private car parking.
Try this link on the NYC website: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/downloads/pdf/curbcuts.pdf
If it doesn’t work, just go to http://www.nyc.gov, search for “curb cuts” and it will direct you to the above link. It’s a PDF of the brochure explaining procedures.
Is there an easy way to check if a new curb cut is legal?
Many years ago a homeowner on a landmarked block in Carroll Gardens tried to create a driveway in his front yard including a curb-cut, but Landmarks put the brakes on that. I don’t know whether curb-cutting is legal or not, but if the location is landmarked, you’re out of luck.
Actually, more cut curbs means fewer cars on the street – b/c the cars usually parked on the street will be in the driveways, and there will not be enough space between the driveways to park more cars.
Enough homeowners pave the ‘front yard/garden’ with concrete anyway. As long as you leave a nice wrought-iron fence, who cares?
You see this in Hoboken also. In addition to the cut curb, basements were converted into garages. I’m sure it’s illegal but back when it was done nobody cared. Now the owners have two spots. One in the garage and one on the street.
I’ve often wondered that myself… If there was a time in years gone by that you could get a permit to create these sort of driveways and have them “protected.” These new ones have to be illegal… and are a horrible eyesore. I’ve posted before that there are too many people who have cars that don’t really need them, who could just as easily rent one on the rare instances the really could use a car… Of coure everyone jeered at me…. If you really need a car, move to a neighborhood that’s car friendly. Which may mean your dream house isn’t in Brownstoner Brooklyn. Or else, put up with the parking situation and leave your front garden alone!