Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Via YIMBY: current view in Greenpoint, house at left A 7/5/16 post by New York YIMBY, Landmarks Approves Restoration Of 218 Guernsey Street, Greenpoint , discusses the 1870-era home in Greenpoint's historic district. It includes some great architecture and some buildings that have been modified but are worth saving, because they convey the neighborhood's fabric (and thus were included in the district when it was designated in 1982). The building at issue is the modest, two-story building at left in the photo at right. About blight Note the rather unbecoming wall covering and modest size of the building, which is apparently 28 feet high . It may be built out to less than 60% of the allowable height--remember, the arbitrary blight designation with Atlantic Yards--given that  R6B zoning , at least for new buildings, requires a base height before set back between 30 and 40 feet, and the maximum height is 50 feet. The Floor Area Ratio, or FAR, allows a lot coverage of...

The New York City Charter Revision Commission hearing on June 24 aired some important testimony on land use reform, to relatively little coverage, and though land use is not on the agenda this year , the issues deserve discussion. The gist of the expert testimony--four of five those invited--was that the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) pretty much works, and shouldn't be amended. (There was also a lot of criticism of Community Benefit Agreements, as I've written .) The one outlier, urban planning professor Tom Angotti of Hunter College--also an advisor to the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods on Atlantic Yards issues--disagreed, laying out in great detail the flaws in ULURP. He suggested that greater weight (though not a veto) be given to the advisory opinions of local Community Boards and arguing for greater transparency in the pre-ULURP negotiations. Also see Angotti's essay in the July Gotham Gazette, headlined Charting a Better Way for Pl...

Appearing today on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show , architecture critics Francis Morrone and Paul Goldberger gave generally positive reviews to the new Atlantic Yards arena, though they acknowledged it couldn't be judged in isolation, given the controversies about the design, funding, and viability of the project as a whole. "It's a building that will have some meaning to some people who are not actually going into it to attend a basketball game," Goldberger said. "The question is: is liking that building enough, given the context in which it exists?" "Considering it solely as intellectual exercise, I think it's the best of the arena designs," Morrone said. He criticized original architect Frank Gehry for saying he drew inspiration from the Brooklyn Bridge. Goldberger acknowledged a "troubling bait-and-switch" to the process, given that Gehry was crucial to getting the project passed but then was cast aside. Replacing the mall Lehrer su...

The second day of the two-day Atlantic Yards hearing held by the Empire State Development Corporation was even more of an anti-climax than the first day . Without a contingent from ACORN and with only a handful of project opponents, no more than 100 people attended during the 2-5 pm day session and far fewer showed up for the 6-8 pm evening session, leaving a sea of empty seats in the Klitgord Auditorium of New York City Technical College. During the latter, hearing officer Edward Kramer several times paused to go “off the record” before new people showed to testify. In fact, the hearing at times seemed like open mike night for members of the construction unions and Community Benefits Agreement signatory (and Forest City Ratner-funded) BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), who touted the expected benefits of the project. (Photos by Tracy Collins ) By my estimation, fewer opponents and critics attended the two-day hearing than the 130 who attended the June 9 update ...

A video from the Municipal Art Society  (MAS) offers an effective sketch of the efforts--prompted by teardowns of historic buildings and the looming Atlantic Yards project--to create the Prospect Heights Historic District, which has been approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and is expected to be approved by the City Council.  Prospect Heights: The Making of a Historic District from MAS on Vimeo . Among those quoted is City Council Member Letitia James, who points to the results of investors who have come in and built out-of-scale buildings, which in this case is about six stories. Tour guide and lecturer Francis Morrone offers his distinctive voice: "Prospect Heights is part of the vast Brownstone Belt of Brooklyn... What's remarkable about this is that there is this intact 19th century scale. There are very few places in cities anywhere in the world where this exists." LPC Chairman Robert Tierney: "Prospect Heights is a natural historic district...

The Prospect Heights Historic District, subject of a hearing last October, has been OK'd by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the largest landmark district created since 1990. The map below is courtesy of photographer Tracy Collins. Note how two fingers of row houses would bookend the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site, slated to be a staging area for arena construction, and also a massive parking lot for workers and visitors, ultimately with 2070 spaces. Blight and the Ward Bakery The Atlantic Yards site, according to the Empire State Development Corporation, is blighted. I wonder how many blighted areas are abutted by historic districts. NoLandGrab's Eric McClure points to the loss of the Ward Bakery--mention of which unsettled the LPC last October--on that southeast block, and the role of the Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC) in advocating for the historic district. NoLandGrab : While ...

It's getting a little frustrating to hear, as on yesterday's Brian Lehrer Show , yet another lament/debate about gentrification without any discussion of policy responses and solutions like investing in the "public realm" --transportation, parks, etc, as detailed by planner Alexander Garvin--to share the benefits of growth. Yesterday's episode featured Fort Greene/Clinton Hill residents Rosie Perez (actress, etc.) and Nelson George (author, etc.), in a preview of a live program slated for Thursday at 10 am at The Greene Space called The Places that Bind: Examining Preservation and Culture in a Changing City . Brownstoner, which hosted a lot of comments on the show, found George's "nostalgic but realistic take" interesting, while calling Perez on her lack of nuance in lamenting how few people she knows today. After all, if people fight over access to tennis courts in Fort Greene Park, how much worse is that than, as a one-time transplant to Brooklyn...

Yesterday’s public hearing held by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on the designation of part of Prospect Heights as a historic district, involving some 870 properties, was hardly contentious. Various interested parties, residents, neighborhood groups, and preservationists saluted the LPC for its decision to move forward in designating part of Prospect Heights as a historic district. (Photo of Marty Markowitz testifying, by Michael D.D. White, who offers his own account of the hearing. Videos by Raul Rothblatt here .) One question was what exactly people might say about the planned Atlantic Yards project, the blocks of which were not considered as part of the district. (Why? Because the project was going through state environmental review, an LPC staffer said last year, which essentially means that the decision was political. Previous coverage of the historic district is linked here .) Council Member Letitia James, Lisa Kersavage of the Municipal Art Society (MAS), Gib ...