About Curbed's framing of "Prospect Heights Residents (and a local McDonald’s) Push Back Against New Tower"
So Curbed yetserday published Prospect Heights Residents (and a local McDonald’s) Push Back Against New Tower, which begins:
My posted comment
Less than a mile down Atlantic Avenue from Barclays Center, past the area’s gleaming new high-rises, an 18-story building may soon replace the drive-through McDonald’s at the corner of Vanderbilt. It’s a part of Prospect Heights that has been called a “development desert,” filled mostly with car-repair and tire shops and low-rise brownstones. But with the Pacific Park megaproject bringing 17 buildings to the area just east of Barclays, a far taller skyline is inching its way down the avenue. This wave of new construction hasn’t made things any easier for the proposed high-rise building, which has just started its public review process and already sparked a familiar NIMBY backlash from neighbors (even the McDonald’s franchise is in the mix, fighting the developers over a fivefold rent hike).This led to such misguided tweets as one from a New York Times reporter, "Because why have 95 units of affordable housing when you could have a drive thru McDonald’s instead." And much YIMBY sentiment for building bigger there and down Atlantic.
My posted comment
Kind of a simplistic analysis, citing a "familiar NIMBY backlash" and a questionable statistic... the issue is less the density of Prospect Heights as a whole than this micro-hood.
And the fight is one of degree: it's not an 18-story building vs. McDonald's, but an 18-story building vs. a 14-story building. The developers want 26% more density--valuable buildable square footage--than what's been proposed in the M-Crown rezoning.
(The main adversary for Vanderbilt Atlantic Holdings is not N. Prospect Heights Association but rather Brooklyn Community Board 8. Elaine Weinstein is not president of the N. Prospect Heights Association.)
"This wave of new construction hasn’t made things any easier for the proposed high-rise building," Curbed writes. On the contrary, the developers are citing the precedent of 809 Atlantic to the north as well as the expected (but not guaranteed) full buildout of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park to the west.
The first round was not March 4 but actually last December, when the developers presented the plan informally to the community board, and got pushback. That's likely why they came back this time with a partial carrot--the announcement of a tenant for low-cost "community facility" space. And that tenant might appeal to the local Council Member.
What's notable about this article is the contrast between skepticism, not undeserved, of neighbors resistant to development, and the absence of any skepticism toward the developer and Department of City Planning, despite questions raised at the meeting, and in my subsequent coverage (in Bklyner: "Proposed Tower at McDonald’s Site Faces Pushback, Questions Over Ownership").
Those questions include: the developer's track record, its ownership components, the development sequence/map, and even the images used to sell the project.
And the fight is one of degree: it's not an 18-story building vs. McDonald's, but an 18-story building vs. a 14-story building. The developers want 26% more density--valuable buildable square footage--than what's been proposed in the M-Crown rezoning.
(The main adversary for Vanderbilt Atlantic Holdings is not N. Prospect Heights Association but rather Brooklyn Community Board 8. Elaine Weinstein is not president of the N. Prospect Heights Association.)
"This wave of new construction hasn’t made things any easier for the proposed high-rise building," Curbed writes. On the contrary, the developers are citing the precedent of 809 Atlantic to the north as well as the expected (but not guaranteed) full buildout of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park to the west.
The first round was not March 4 but actually last December, when the developers presented the plan informally to the community board, and got pushback. That's likely why they came back this time with a partial carrot--the announcement of a tenant for low-cost "community facility" space. And that tenant might appeal to the local Council Member.
What's notable about this article is the contrast between skepticism, not undeserved, of neighbors resistant to development, and the absence of any skepticism toward the developer and Department of City Planning, despite questions raised at the meeting, and in my subsequent coverage (in Bklyner: "Proposed Tower at McDonald’s Site Faces Pushback, Questions Over Ownership").
Those questions include: the developer's track record, its ownership components, the development sequence/map, and even the images used to sell the project.
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