Big Role for Brooklyn in Land Reclamation Plan
If New York City keeps growing at its current pace, there will be over 9 million residents within the next two decades, up from 8.2 million last year. And they’re all going to need a place to live. Hence the Bloomberg administration’s announcement next month of a comprehensive plan to reclaim currently underused parcels of…
If New York City keeps growing at its current pace, there will be over 9 million residents within the next two decades, up from 8.2 million last year. And they’re all going to need a place to live. Hence the Bloomberg administration’s announcement next month of a comprehensive plan to reclaim currently underused parcels of land for residential development. It could be a zoning change, an investment in a form of transportation, it could be park space, working with Con Ed and KeySpan on energy needs, said Dan Doctoroff, deputy mayor for economic development. Power plants take acres and acres of land, but if we’re going to grow we’ve got to provide that. One place the city will definitely be looking? The 1,700 acres of contaminated land, also known as brownfields. New technology may make it economically viable to reclaim the land. Obviously, a large portion of this growth is going to come in Brooklyn. What are the biggest potential ramifications of this combination of land reclamation and building boom for the borough’s current residents and the real estate market?
Photo from I’m Not Sayin, I’m Just Sayin
okay, loser. Don’t buy in bed-sty. Are you happy now. Or do you need to continue a little further, another day maybe, in your bashing of bed sty. Don’t buy there okay. There, we said it.
Care to contribute anything else? Because you’re beginning to sound like a broken record.
Bed stuy has vacant lots? No surely not, everyone was telling us recently its just fabulous there! Oh wait, those were the people who had just bought houses there.
How about putting up some higher density affordable housing in neighborhood that remain riddled with empty lots? I work in Bed-Stuy close to Woodhull Hospital. There are seven vacant lots just down the street from my office, all on just one block. But all that’s going up in the vicinity are very small (very ugly) two-families with driveways.
Bed-Stuy isn’t overly dense — the part where I work is depopulated! As of 2000, Brooklyn had 2,465,326 people. In 1930, Brooklyn held 2,560,401. There’s plenty of room in Brooklyn for more people. We just need the right kind of development and investment in infrastructure (easier said than done).
re-claimed land: good idea…but…
but we’re missing the ‘big’ picture here: our economic elite sees mass immigration as not only a source of cheap nannies for themselves but the only way to keep that economy churning. Common sense would tell us it’s not sustainable unless we want a population density that will permanently diminsh our quality of life. The current ‘elite’ on all levels of government, just don’t care – they started trashing our society when they were kids in the 60s and they’re finishing it off now – -its been one big self centered party for themselves and younger generations will have to pay the price.
Newtown is the Venice of Brooklyn.
“Nimbys are against every development and often with reasons that are not substantive.”
aren’t labels fantastic things. what would we ever do without them?
guess i, along with my fellow nimbys, should crawl back to our caves…oh, yeah, I forgot that we just lost our caves to the guys who created the wheel. they’re invoking eminent domain to take our caves so that they can build something called a road.
For one thing, the transportation in Brooklyn can be pretty bad already, whether it is subways, buses, or roads. Do we really need more people to tax an already overburdened system?
lostinbrooklyn: an expression of free speech I am all for.
However, the crusade to stop wanton destruction of historic buildings is NOT what we are talking about. Often the nimbots will derail as-of-right construction as well as construction that is for the common good.
Nimbys are against every development and often with reasons that are not substantive.
And what are your suggestions, lostinbrooklyn? Mine would be that the city allow more building, because if 9 million people want to live in New York City, just like I do, they should be able to, just like I can. However, I also believe that the city should finally grow a pair when it comes to taxing developers and handing out tax breaks, so as to use the revenue from development to build all the need new schools, transportation and other infrastructure.
Having kids go to uncrowded schools and having people able to fit on the subways and buses is a matter of the greater public interest. Pulling up the ladder so I can enjoy my views and easily find a parking space and have nice comfy elbow room on the sidewalks of Park Slope is not.