Affordable Housing in Pfizer Site's Future?
Pharma giant Pfizer announced yesterday that it would be shuttering the Flushing Avenue plant where the company commenced operations 156 years ago towards the end of next year. Along with concern about the closing’s impact on the location’s 600 workers came speculation about its real estate implications. In addition to the 660,000-square-foot plant betwen Marcy…
Pharma giant Pfizer announced yesterday that it would be shuttering the Flushing Avenue plant where the company commenced operations 156 years ago towards the end of next year. Along with concern about the closing’s impact on the location’s 600 workers came speculation about its real estate implications. In addition to the 660,000-square-foot plant betwen Marcy and Tompkins, the company own another 15 acres of land nearby, including the site of the charter school it launched recently. The availablity of a site this size provides Mayor Bloomberg with a rare opportunity to achieve his affordable housing goals. The area would have to be rezoned for residential, but the Mayor said yesterday that he planned to pursue that course of action. As for Pfizer? “We will look for a solution in keeping with the surrounding neighborhoods,” a spokesman said. What would you like to see done with the site?
Shutting Doors Where a Drug-Making Giant Began [NY Times]
Pfizer to Axe Brooklyn Plant [NY Post]
Pfizer Job Cuts May Mean Loss Of Tax Breaks [NY Sun]
Photo by hi-lo
Affordable is a relative term. Affordable to who? People that can pay $1900/month for a 500sf apartment? They should be affordable condos for households (depending on family size) in the $25,000 to $75,000 income range. Those are the people who suffer most in New York City. It would allow some hardworking people from the surrounding area to own something. People who turn up their nose at this neighborhood & the people who live there, should stay out.
a Kosher Whole Foods.
Why does everyone confuse affordable housing with projects? I think it’s universally acknowledged that packing the maximum number of lower-income families one top of one another in isolation from the rest of scoiety is not the way to go. A mix of affordable and higher-priced units would insure continuation of an integrated society. The choice shouldn’t be high-end condos or projects but something in between. And, BTW, who is going to buy high-end condos in this relatively barren, isolated (G train at Flushing Ave is the only subway option) location? But I really think pfa’s suggestion is the best.
I don’t think any of us were suggesting that this factory should turned into only affordable housing, ala public projects. We were suggesting that there should be some affordable housing built there along with market rate housing.
I suggested that the zoning should be changed to residential with an affordable quotient. You would have market rate and affordable housing in the same building, and it would avoid the ghettoization of one economic class that public housing projects create.
free and/or low cost housing should be available to everybody. and the westbeth model, notwithstanding its conceptual flaws, will probably never be repeated. a possible “reinvention” of the idea could involve the development of housing aimed at families earning less than 100k and individuals earning less than 50k with special consideration given to artists, and with no so called “market rate” units. a decent grocery store would be nice, too.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
affordable housing? you mean yet ANOTHER manifestation of the failed social works project that marginalizes and ghetto-izes the poor? NO!
If I were a developer, I’d like to cut some streets into it, make a little park square in the middle, and make a deal with other individual developers to build whatever they think the market bears on the small, Brooklyn-neighborhood-sized lots I would plat on the land. The provisions would be that they must build up to the sidewalk, they must not build any parking, and they must have retail space on the ground floor. This would likely ensure a mix of condos, rentals, and even offices, and while it would be very dense the small lot sizes would prevent insanely tall highrises (not that I’m anti-highrise). I’m sure the City would foil my plans at making an organic development somewhat in the manner in which they used to be done, but it’s nice to dream.
pfa, that is a wonderful idea! If anyone deserves free and/or low cost housing in this neighborhood, it is the real artists, the creative class, who bring something so valuable to the places where they live. If they don’t build housing for artists, then they might as well turn it into a Fairway or a Trader Joe’s, because there certainly aren’t any decent grocery stores ’round here. How about a Trader Joe’s with housing for artists above it?
How about something like a new Westbeth? An oasis of livability for the creative community of williamsburg (the ones who actually are artists, designers, filmmakers, composers, etc.). A last chance to hold on to the very thing that has made the area so desireable to the investmant bankers, marketing execs, and assorted midwesterner-yuppies that are hell-bent on turning new york in to a culturally and economically homogenous place that makes Geneva seem fun.