Carroll Gardens Street Cleanup: This Sunday 11/23

This group has latched on to a simple and great project. I like to pick up a few pieces of litter every time I take a walk, it always makes me feel good about myself. Why not take an hour or two this Sunday to help clean up the neighborhood, if only to make yourself feel good?

Brooklyn Cleaning Project
Sun. Nov. 23rd, 10 AM
Corner of 2nd Pl + Smith St.
F line to “Carroll St.” station
For further info,
E mail Terry at soujiny@gmail.com
www.nysouji.seesaa.net
www.cleanupnewyorkstreets.com

Amanda Burden At CB6 On The Gowanus Rezoning, Carroll Gardens Downzoning

We couldn't attend last night's meeting due to a family commitment, but Pardon me For Asking and the Gowanus Lounge provide the details.

While I'm encouraged to hear that the Carroll gardens downzoning has been faststracked and should be unveiled next June, we'll need to be vigilant and carefully scrutinize the terms, and make sure to turn out in force for every meeting. Bill deBlasio should be commended for elbowing CG to the front of the line; there's no question in my mind that we would not have achieved what we have so far without his efforts on Wide Streets and downzoning.

On the other hand, I think it's a mistake to put 12 story buildings on this side of the Gowanus Canal. (The Public Place site is a different matter, given the viaduct that circumscribes the site.) The Gowanus should not be a trade-off for a downzoning of Carroll Gardens.

Lastly, (for now) I was disappointed with the earlier CB6 approval of the Toll Brothers plans along the Gowanus. We have truly put the cart before the horse in taking this one developer's parcel and spotzoning it ahead of the entire Gowanus framework. The result of this is a bootstrapping of the ultimate framework itself, and a skewing of the analysis of development impacts in favor of the developers.

Will Imploding Real Estate Bubble Sink Toll Gowanus Plan?

First yesterday was the Bloomberg headline: Toll Brothers Revenues Plunge 41%.

Then there was the unseemly grasping of CEO Bob Toll for a handout from the federal government. Believe it or not, Bob Toll, who cashed out stock to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars at the height of the bubble, is now asking for a federal handout for LUXURY home builders. Can't blame him for trying, what with every investment bank and now the automakers squealing at the trough, but this would be utterly wrongheaded policy. The problem in the housing market is that home prices detached from fundamentals (household incomes and rental value) due to easy monetary policy and lax regulation.

Now to top it all off, Toll says that the New York market is hitting the skids:

“New York City was a nice stand-alone beacon,” he said in a conference call this afternoon. “Now it has joined the rest of the country.” That happened, he said, in mid-September after the financial crisis worsened.

Many people do not want to hear it, but the housing market is crashing, and for sound reason. The price of homes rose far beyond what people could afford. Price to income ratios broke through the roof during the bubble and have yet to return to sustainable levels. Most of all the fault lies on Alan Greenspan's shoulders, but the Bush administrations abject failure of regulation, after the GOP-led deregulation of the 1990s is also to blame.

Expect home prices to decline precipitously over the next 18 months. The 4th quarter 2008 and 1st quarter 2009 numbers in particular will be jarring. And builders are still churning out new units into a softening market at near record pace. Projects that have not broken ground, or even been permitted at this point (such as Toll Brothers proposed Gowanus development between Carroll and 2nd Street) have a high probability of being shelved or killed.

At this point, I imagine Toll Brothers will still proceed full steam ahead with their efforts to re-zone the property. If they are successful, they can flip it to another developer or hold onto the site for a period of years. But whether they succeed with the rezoning or not, it grows less likely by the day that this development will be built any time soon.

This will not be the end of the world, but it will be tough for many of us. We do need to take concrete steps to keep people working. I have been saying for a long time now that we need a Federal program of public works, specifically in transit infrastructure, clean energy, clean water, and high speed data networks to get our economy moving again and lay the foundation for the next generation of growth. I hope that President Obama will be even more ambitious than FDR in this regard.

Various Items

Still working 6 days a week. Hope you're enjoying your summer! Some items of note:

- Alternate side parking changes are in the works for Cobble Hill / Carroll Gardens beginning August 18th. See NYC DOT for details. More at the Gowanus Lounge.

- Bob Dylan in Prospect Park tonight.

- BQE entrance ramp on Columbia will be closed the next two weekends - plan accordingly: "Trocom Construction will begin working on the BQE entrance on Columbia Street this weekend. The entrance and exit ramps will be closed for the next two weekends. We are currently installing VMS boards to notify the residents and commuters of this closure. The exits will be closed from Aug. 15th 10:00PM until Aug 18th 5:00AM, and Aug. 22nd 10:00PM until 25th at 5:00AM"

- Assemblyman Joe Lentol sends an open letter to MTA regarding the neglected stepson of the NYC Transit, the G train. Brooklyn and Queens deserve better.

Quick Hits - 65 Hour Workweek Edition

Posting has been light due to many hours in the salt mines of legal work.

A few interesting bits:

- The MTA informs us that the closing of Carroll Street subway station main entrance has been delayed indefinitely, until developer Billy Stein is ready to do the work that requires closure. That's good! But 90% of the plaza including the news stand is still closed. That's bad.

- The wide streets text amendment sailed through the City Council this week, passed unanimously. Great work CGNA, CORD, Bill deBlasio and everyone else. Thank yous as well to Marty Markowitz, CB6, Marty Connors office, Joan Millman's office, and the countless individuals who fought for this. Maria Pagano, Glenn & Katia Kelly, John Hatheway, Rita Miller, Lucy deCarlo, Triada Samaras, Vince Favorito, Maryann Young, the list goes on and on. But this was the easy part! Downzoning and landmarking are going to be longer, tougher fights, but we CAN make it happen.

- From the Inbox:
"a local site called stoopsales.com . (www.stoopsales.com) It's a place where people can list and find stoopsales all over Brooklyn. The site features:
- mapping
- Browsing sales by neighborhood
- Advanced searching
- RSS feeds
- Email alerts for neighborhood sales
- Sale "bookmarking"
- and more..."

No postings for Carroll Gardens yet . . . but this looks like a great neighborhood tool. My cousin Dave will love it.

Electronic Recycling Drive on Smith Street

Thanks to Tom Gray from Bill deBlasio's office. I've had a bag of junk in my closet fro months now, which I'll be parting with tomorrow for good and all.

N BROOKLYN
Saturday May 31, 10am-4pm
Sunday June 1, 10am-4pm
Monday June 2, 4pm-7pm
Smith Street between Carroll and President Streets

The Department of Sanitation is holding electronics collection events in all five boroughs this spring, for more information please click here.

The Truth About The Wide Streets Amendment

Pardon Me For Asking has a must read post today on the Wide Streets Text Amendment.

The CGNA forum has been been inundated for days now with mis-information, dis-information and utter nonsense, mostly from one persistent opponent of the text amendment who is masquerading as a local preservationist. The sad thing is, to the casual observer, most of it sounds perfectly reasonable.

Please click through and read the entirety of the post above to get the true story on the text amendment. The misinformation flying around has sown confusion, fear and doubt where there should be clarity and unity. The wide streets amendment will help PREVENT out ofd scale development in Carroll Gardens. That is the point. That is precisely why a few would-be developers are fighting so hard against it.

Bottom line: the wide streets amendment will preserve the neighborhood scale by treating the Place blocks and a few others with 33' courtyards exactly like they should be: the same as President Street and other Carroll Gardens residential streets.

We are working to get the neighborhood downzoned to a more appropriate R6B. A number of people are working hard on landmark status as well. In the meantime, we need to get this wide streets amendment passed.

Gowanus Goes Green - Next Sunday June 1st

This looks like a lot of fun . . . and who can argue with environmentally friendly fare, food, and entertainment? I took my niece to see sokme music at The Yard last summer. It really is a great space. The combination of trees, the adaptive reuse of the silos for studio space, and the location right on the Gowanus made for a very pleasant experience. I regretted then that they weren't selling refreshments, but it looks like this time around they'll be stocked up. Details below and available in full at the Gowanus Canal Conservancy.

Come celebrate the Gowanus Canal and its watershed at an all day festival on the banks of the canal! Showcasing an assortment of environ-mentally-conscious products andservices from Brooklyn businesses.Great music, organic and natural food,educational workshops, kids activities and more for the whole family!!!! Free admission for the public.

The Yard - Carroll Street on the Canal(between Bond and Nevins Street)
Sunday,June 1, 2008 - 11:00am to 6:00pm
featuring The DEFiBULATORs playing at 12:00 and 2:30

For more information on exhibiting or sponsorship, please contact Lauren Collins at (718) 858-0557 or lauren@gowanus.org.

Check it out!
~

Spring Is In The Air

And lots of activity in the streets. This morning I spent an hour flyering the block for the Public Hearing tomorrow afternoon at Borough Hall (209 Joralemon St, 5:30). Also I saw on the stoops there were flyers out for deBlasio's meeting tomorrow afternoon. I didn't see any today, but there are also some flyers that anonymous persons put out with scare tactics to confuse the issue of the wide streets amendment. The times and locations of the various public meetings tomorrow are HERE.

The picture above is of a guy making the best of the construction fence situation on 1st Place between Court and Clinton. Nice work!

* And in case it isn't clear, I wholeheartedly support the text amendment to close the "wide street" loophole that allows out of context development on the Place blocks and other blocks with courtyards *

May 7th Packed with Carroll Gardens Meetings

This is a pretty tight schedule in the local meeting circuit, but a lot of important stuff being covered. From Maria Pagano, CGNA President:

Acknowledging the interest and concern we have expressed, three separate meetings have been scheduled for next week by city agencies,elected officials and KEYSPAN.

The members of the CGNA Board encourage everyone to attend at least one
of the meetings. Bring a family member, a friend, a neighbor! (I don't
think pets can be accommodated).

These three meetings are all scheduled for Wednesday, May 7.

In time order:

1. Check your mail. A notice was sent out from KEYSPAN/NATIONAL GRID.
They will hold the first public meetings to "discuss the remedial
investigation
of a former manufactured gas site located at DeGraw near the Gowanus
Canal".
This is the beginning KEYSPAN's participation in the public discussion
on cleaning up the
Gowanus gas sites. There are a total of 17 sites. Meetings on Public
Place,
the Toll Bros site, etc to follow.
Meeting site: PS 32 (317 Hoyt St at Union)
Times: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM and 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
[ED. NOTE: more on this at Gowanus Lounge]
2. Borough President Marty Markowitz will hold a public meeting to
discuss the pending text amendment proposed by the Department of City
Planning. This text amendment will correct the inappropriate "wide
street" designation currently applied to the Place blocks; they will be
designated as narrow streets, as they were originally defined by law
when
they were created, and will match the bulk permitted on the other
residential blocks of Carroll Gardens.
Meeting site: Borough Hall, Community Room
Joralemon St entrance
Time: 5:30 PM
[ED. NOTE: more on this at Gowanus Lounge]

3. Plan for the Future Forum: The Gowanus
Sponsored by City Councilmember Bill DeBlasio,
CB6, Gowanus Dredgers, Gowanus Canal Development Corporation and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy Representatives of the NYS Departments of Environmental Conservation,
Education, City Planning, Buildings, NYPD, FDNY and NYC Parks and Recreation
will be on hand to answer questions.
For more info and to pre-register questions,
call Tom Gray at 718 854 9791.
Meeting site: 2nd St at the Gowanus Canal (off Bond)
There will be a tent at the site if the weather is bad.
Time: 6:30 PM-8:30 PM

Once again, we urge everyone to attend at least one of these meetings!

Back to my voice: be sure to check out the new and improved Gowanus Lounge at www.gowanuslounge.com. Bob's work has contributed immeasurably to the flow of information in our neighborhood. Looks great, too!

360 Smith: Stein Digs In

Ah, to be at the right place at the right time. The gate to the 360 Smith construction site was open when I walked by this morning. I snapped a couple of pictures, and the gate was unceremoniously slammed shut . . . but not before I got some (camera-phone) quality shots for you, dear reader.

Looks like Stein is motivated to beat the text change on wide streets. Speaking of which, deBlasio's office, CGNA and CORD are all encouraging people to support the text amendment at CB6 Thursday night, April 24th:

Presentation and review of proposed Zoning Resolution Text Amendment (#N080345ZRK), known as the Carroll Gardens Places Text Amendment, submitted by the Department of City Planning that would define 1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place and 4th Place between Henry Street and Smith Street; and 2nd Street, Carroll Street and President Street between Smith Street and Hoyt Street, in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn Community Board 6 as 'Narrow Streets' for zoning calculation purposes.
Brooklyn Community Board 6
250 Baltic Street
(Court/Clinton Streets)
Auditorium
6:00 p.m.
April 24, 2008

Public Place Layout

Brownstoner has all the details in a very comprehensive rundown of the winning bid.

All things considered, and especially given some of the alternatives I saw, this looks pretty good.

Image courtesy of Brownstoner. Check out their post.

Public Place Renderings at Curbed

Check them out at Curbed.

I had to leave a bit early for another meeting. Both renderings have significantly larger bulk than the neighborhood is used to, and the reps from the City basically conceded that no study has been done on local infrastructure needs to go along with the development proposals.

Also, a large turnout of union workers attended the meeting. Apparently, one of the developers has a spotty history of using non-union labor.

CB6 Tonight: What's Going On At Public Place?

As announced by District Manager Craig Hammerman at the last CGNA meeting, CB6 is hosting an informational meeting tonight to get out the word on the Public Place development proposals.

This is a big project by any measure. It's important to have a large presence of interested residents out there to maximize community input.

Tonight, 6:30PM
PS 32 Auditorium
317 Hoyt Street
(between Union & President)

Brooklyn CB6 Calendar

Frank's Deli, on Smith at 2nd Place

Frank's Deli, across from the Carroll Street subway station, got a facelift in the last two weeks. I'm a big fan of the pancakes there (only an occasional indulgence or I'd be bigger than Stein's plan for 360 Smith - zing! I'll be here all week).

Anyway, the new awning looks great; it's much more inviting than the old enclosure in front of the door. I'll bet they double or triple their business from this investment. Seriously.

Court Street Lofts $100M Price Chop

I feel bad for whomever paid full price for a condo in this building. The prices for these units are still inconceivable to me. Via Curbed.

Toll Brothers Gowanus Plan

Gowanus Lounge (and Curbed) has renderings from Toll Brothers scoping plans for their 3 acre parcel on the Gowanus. On the plus side, their would be some open space on the waterfront. The bad news would be 6 story buildings on Bond and a 12 story building on the canal.

I imagine a LOT of people will be unhappy about this. Click the GL link for pictures.

Remember, the zoning for this area is in flux . . . this is very different from the situation at 360 Smith. Here, the community actually has a lot more opportunity for influencing the outcome.

CGNA Meeting Roundup: 360 Smith Edition

Last night's Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association (our first at St. mary's Residences at 41 1st Street) was dominated by the looming edifice of 360 Smith Street. Developer Billy Stein came packing last night, with a new architect (no more Scarano!) and a multimedia presentation for the large crowd that turned out. Before I get into my thoughts, the meeting has already been ably covered by:
The Gowanus Lounge
Pardon Me For Asking
CORD
Brownstoner

Longtime readers will know that my biggest issue with the 360 Smith developent is that the courtyard be preserved (it will be). Second is the look and scale of the building, and that is more of a mixed bag. The planned development (pictured above) will rise 6 stories, with a setback and an additional level on top, for a total of seven stories (plus parapet & mechanics) . . . the bulk height will be 70', with an effective height more like 75'-80'. This is disappointingly large, but within the current zoning - which is why our efforts to downzone the neighborhood and eliminate the wide streets loophole are so vital. This proposed height is perfectly legal and requires no zoning variances.

The architect (KSQ Architects) brought 3D computer models which he showed on an overhead screen. Interestingly, the building seems to blend a lot better on the 2nd Place side than on Smith Street.

While I think the design over all could use some work (I would go with a limestone color in the glass area and overtop, limit the color scheme to two colors, and setback the corner top level like the rest of the top level). In addition, the corner piece over all could use a reworking, possibly even rounding the corner to soften the edge. The good news is that Stein has indicated a willingness to work with the community on the facade appearance, if not on density.

Some meeting attendees pleaded for some architectural details in the corner area, with one suggesting even gargoyles. Which leads me to this thought: crown the building entrance with a gargoyle, cast in the likeness of Robert Scarano.
Photo credit: Pardon Me For Asking

Late Night, Lazy Morning Roundup: Election, Toll Brothers, 116 3rd Place

A long day and then a couple hours vegging in front of election coverage. We've got a race on our hands, possibly into the convention.

Obama took the gloves off for a few minutes and laid a few shots into Clinton, which was good. I don't think the Hillary camp ever anticipated that it would come to this point: neck and neck after "Super-Duper Tuesday". But here we are.

In other news, Toll Brothers, the luxury housing developer, reported it's seventh straight quarter of declining sales. Begs the question of just how soon Toll will be in a position to develop along the Gowanus. I'm betting no time soon.

Katia has some pictures of the out-of-scale enlargement at 116 3rd Place. This building fascinates me, partly because I used to live directly behind it, and so I had a rather intimate acquaintance with it's construction up until May 2007. I can remember being excited to see them laying in radiant flooring. I can remember being horrified to see the three extra stories added on top. Actually, I can remember the day I was taking a shower and realized that the workers were now high enough to see right into the window of my fourth floor bathroom. Alas, no more cool breezes. As Katia notes, adding the mansard roof level would have made for a lovely addition. But those final two levels stick out like a sore thumb.

And then, via Curbed, to see (1) the hideous renderings of the interiors on Corcoran's site (really? a fake zebra carpet?) and (2) the prices they're asking - $2.7MM for the top unit (I can't bring myself to call it a penthouse when it's not in a highrise building . . . even if that term is technically correct).

I don't quite know what to say.

Downzoning Rally VIDEO

Fred from the Union-Sackett Block Association shot some great video of the rally.

Gowanus Lounge has mirrored the videos here.

I'm at the podium about 6:00 into the second video. I have no sound where I am right now . . . hopefully I spoke clearly.